Anthony Swerdlow was educated in medicine at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. After junior posts in clinical medicine, epidemiology and public health in the Oxford region and London, he worked in epidemiology at the University of Glasgow and at the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys before moving to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1987. He is currently Professor of Epidemiology at the School. His research is in chronic disease epidemiology, mainly on cancer but also on other diseases including type 1 diabetes and CJD. His research interests have for many years included non-ionising radiation and he is currently a member of the NRPB Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation and of the Epidemiology Standing Committee of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.