Gary Macfarlane has been Chair in Epidemiology (Clinical) at The University of Aberdeen since 2005 and previously held the same post at The University of Manchester from 1999. He is also Deputy Director of the Institute of Institute of Applied Health Sciences And Honorary Consultant in the Department of Public Health in NHS Grampian. He trained in Statistics/ Computing Science and then Medicine at The University of Glasgow before undertaking his PhD at The University of Bristol. He worked at the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan before leading a programme of chronic pain research at the Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit at the University of Manchester.

He leads the Epidemiology group at the University of Aberdeen which has programmes of research in Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases (RMD) and Ageing. The RMD programme focuses on: musculoskeletal pain (including fibromyalgia), rheumatic fatigue and axial sponyloarthropathy. It has current funding of ~£6m, it runs the British Society of Rheumatology Biologics Register in Ankylosing Spondylitis (BSRBR-AS), is establishing a similar register in Psoriatic Arthritis (BSRBR-PsA) and is part of the Arthritis Research UK/Medical Research Council Centre for Musculoskeletal Health and Work (with University of Southampton). Professor Macfarlane is a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine.