Jean Golding

Born in Hayle, Cornwall in 1939, Golding struggled with illness throughout her childhood. Her regular stays in hospital led to a delay in the beginning of her education, eventually starting school when she was six years old. Her family moved to Chester, after a period living in Plymouth, and within a few weeks she contracted polio, causing her to miss another year of school and causing a disability that would remain with her permanently. Despite these interruptions to her schooling, she won a place studying mathematics at St Anne's College, Oxford in 1958,[2] from where she was awarded an honours BA, and subsequently MA.

In 1966 she joined a team in London, headed by Neville Butler and Eva Alberman,[3] analysing data collected in the 1958 Perinatal Mortality Survey (later the 1958 birth cohort) British birth cohort studies. She then obtained a research fellowship in the Galton Laboratory of Human Genetics and Biometry, University College London Galton Laboratory to study the aetiology of neural tube defects. Subsequent research at the University of Oxford, involved working with large data sets including the Oxford Record Linkage Study.

In 1980 she moved to the University of Bristol, where she was involved in analysing data from the national 1970 birth cohort British birth cohort studies. During the 1980s she was responsible for assisting in designing and augmenting a major perinatal survey in Jamaica 1985-6,[4] and developed, and was the initial Director of the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ELSPAC).[5] This led to the founding of ALSPAC (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), also known as Children of the 90s, a birth cohort study, the overall aim of which is to determine the ways in which different aspects of the environment influence child health and development, and how these may be influenced by genetics.[6] The study has resulted in a highly detailed dataset of children born in the Avon area in 1991 and 1992, their parents and, as time has gone on, their own children. It continues to record biological, psychological, social and medical information of these groups throughout their childhoods and into their adult lives ALSPAC. The dataset is used by researchers across the world,[2] and it includes interviews, questionnaires, biological samples, hands-on testing and linkage to educational and other records. Data collection has continued since the children were born. Golding's decision on what data was useful to collect has led to it being used for genetic and Epigenetics research worldwide,[7] and, by 2019, around 2000 peer-reviewed papers based on this resource have been published (see ALSPAC website: www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/).

In 1987 she was the founding editor of the international journal: Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology and continued as editor-in-chief until 2012. Golding has continued to carry out research on the ALSPAC resource long into retirement, and has concentrated in particular with the psychologist, Professor Stephen Nowicki, at Emory University, on the Locus of control of the parents and children and how that appears to influence behaviours, and with Professor Marcus Pembrey on various trans- and inter-generational Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance influences on outcomes of various sorts.

In 2012 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to medical science.[2][8]

In 2013, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Bristol, acclaimed as an "exemplar of the qualities and values the institution promotes".[9]

In 2017, she received an honorary Doctor of Science from University College London for her pioneering work on longitudinal population studies.[10]

In 2018, as a celebration of the 70 years since the start of the NHS, she was made one of seven "NHS Research Legends".[11]

In 2018, the University of Bristol named their Institute of Data Science after her.[12]

Again in 2018, in response to a national call by English Heritage Put her Forward campaign (in response to the realisation of the paucity of statues of women in Britain), Golding was nominated, and among 25 women to have a 3-D printed statuette.[13][14] This is currently displayed in the Royal Fort House at the University of Bristol.

• Jean Golding on the History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group website