Academic Qualifications: NUI Galway (M.B., B.Ch. B.A.O. 1982, M.Med.Sci. 1988, M.D. 1992; University of London (M.Sc. Epidemiology 1990, Ph.D. Epidemiology 1995).

Professional Qualifications: Member Royal College of Physicians (UK) 1986; Member Faculty of Public Health, UK 1994; Certificate of Completion of Higher Specialist Training in Public Health Medicine, UK 1995.

Affiliations: Fellow Royal College of Physicians, UK (FRCP); Fellow Royal College of Physicians, Ireland (FRCPI); Fellow Faculty of Public Health Medicine, Ireland (FFPHMI);  Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA).

Current Position: 2017-Present: Professor of Public Health, Dean School of Public Health, University College Cork.

Previous Positions: 1997-2017 Head, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College Cork;  1996-1997: Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology/ Deputy Director of  UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit, Imperial College School of Medicine, University of London

Research achievements: Professor Perry has over twenty years’ experience of population health research including the design and analysis of major national and international epidemiological studies, including the British Regional Heart Study, the SLAN 2007 National Health and Lifestyle study, Ireland's National Suicide Registry and the Mitchelstown Cohort Study. He has over 300 publications in peer reviewed journals, with over 23,000 citations (h-index of 69, i10-index 217) and chapters in international text books of cardiology, hypertension and life-course epidemiology. He has successfully supervised over 20 doctoral theses. One of his early papers on the measurement of blood pressure (BP) in pregnancy, published in the British Medical Journal in 1990, was the seminal paper that led to the adoption of the same standardised BP measurement technique in pregnant as in non-pregnant adults.  He has published highly cited papers in high impact international journals (including Lancet, British Medical Journal, American Journal of Epidemiology, International Journal of Epidemiology, Journal of the American Medical Association, Heart) on the aetiology and prevention of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. He has made significant contributions to our current understanding of inter-relations between type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, highlighting the extent to which these conditions share common underlying causal factors. In the Cork Coronary Care Case-Control study, he provided critical evidence challenging the putative role of chronic infection in coronary heart disease (Heart, 2005). He published the first paper (Diabetes Care, 1998) to show that biochemical markers of fatty liver disease predict the subsequent development of type 2 diabetes, a seminal paper in the now extensive literature on the role of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in cardio-metabolic disease. He was also the first scientist to suggest that dietary salt intake may increase risk of stroke, through mechanisms that are independent of the effects of salt intake on blood pressure (J Irish Coll Physician Surg, 1990; J Hum Hypertension, 1992).  Professor Perry was one of the lead investigators on a major study published in the British Medical Journal addressing the impact of the 2004 workplace smoking ban on the health of bar staff in Ireland. He has also led a landmark study research addressing quality of care and quality of life in patients with diabetes managed in primary and secondary care settings - published in Diabetes Care and cited by the Health Research Board as an exemplar of excellence in Health Services Research.

Professor Perry is Principal Investigator on the Irish Health Research Board (HRB) Centre for Health & Diet Research (HRB-CHDR) which was established in 2008 and was awarded a renewal of funding in 2014.  The HRB-CHDR was described by an international review panel as "flourishing" and the panel considered "the unique mix of people, backgrounds and skills to be a real strength and perhaps unique in Europe”. As of 2018, the HRB-CHDR has produced over 200 peer reviewed papers, 17 other publication including major national reports, over 300 conference presentations and it has supported 25 PhDs/MDs and 48 Masters Dissertations.  

In his work as a nutritional epidemiologist and Principal Investigator of the HRB-CHDR, Professor Perry has drafted and contributed to significant national policy documents and research studies including the 2004 Food Safety Authority of Ireland Report-Salt and Health: Review of the Scientific Evidence and Recommendations for Public Policy in Ireland and A Healthy Weight for Ireland: Obesity Policy and Action Plan 2016 - 2025. He was Principal Investigator on the 2012 report on The cost of overweight and obesity on the Island of Ireland" and the 2017 Lifetime Costs of Childhood Obesity on the Island of Ireland. The 2012 cost of obesity report, which is regarded as one of the most comprehensive studies of the direct health care and the indirect societal costs of obesity, was presented at an EU Council of Ministers meeting and it has substantially influenced the evolution of policy on overweight and obesity in Ireland.  Work from the HRB-CHDR on promotion of a healthy diet in the workplace was cited in the landmark international report from McKinsey Global Institute: Overcoming obesity: An initial economic analysis.

In 2000, with funding from the Department of Health, Professor Perry led on the establishment of Ireland's National Self Harm Registry, the first registry of its kind worldwide, which has achieved 100% coverage of hospitals in the Republic of Ireland. The Registry has been extended to Northern Ireland and it has been adopted by the WHO as a Global Template for self-harm surveillance. In 2015, Professor Perry was lead researcher on a paper assessing the impact of the 2008 recession on rates of suicide and self-harm in the Republic of Ireland, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

In 2007, Professor Perry was a co-Principal Investigator on the HRB funded PhD Scholar Programme in Health Services Research (HSR). This prestigious inter-institutional doctoral training programme has secured two additional rounds of funding and now operates as a national doctoral training in HSR and Population Health Sciences. In 2010, he was a Co-principal investigator on UCC's successful capital funding application to the Higher Education Authority “Translating Biosciences into Health” (PRTLI-5- €19.1M).

He has considerable national and international experience as a peer reviewer with international journals and funding agencies, including the British Heart Foundation, the UK Medical Research Council, the Welcome Trust and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - DFG). He has delivered key-note addresses at national and international conferences, including the British Hypertension Society and the European Congress on Obesity. He is on the steering committee of the UK Society for Social Medicine and Population Health and he hosted a joint Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society with the European Congress of Epidemiology in UCC in 2007 and  in 2019. In 2019, he joined the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as visiting scientist on a short sabbatical from UCC. In April 2019 Professor Perry was elected to membership of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA)

Capacity building in academic Public Health: Ivan Perry was appointed Professor of Public Health in the newly established Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, UCC in 1997. On his appointment, he was single-handed and over the past two decades he has led the development of a flourishing, multi-disciplinary academic public health centre with a 4–year undergraduate BSc in Public Health Sciences, Masters Programmes in Public Health and Occupational Health and doctoral programmes in epidemiology, health services research and applied public health research. In October 2017, he was appointed Dean of the newly established School of Public Health at University College Cork. The School of Public Health in UCC is now the largest dedicated academic centre for public health in the Republic of Ireland. In the most recent Report of UCC’s Research Quality Review, the research activity of the Department was rated as excellent and of leading international standard by the international peer review panel with an overall score of 5 (maximum). Public Health research is now one of five leading research themes for the College of Medicine and Health, UCC.