Tolu Oni is a Public Health Physician Scientist and urban epidemiologist, and a Clinical Senior Research fellow with the University of Cambridge MRC Epidemiology Unit’s Global Public Health Research programme.

She completed her medical training at University College London, postgraduate medical training in the UK and Australia, a Masters in Public Health (Epidemiology) at the University of Cape Town, and her research doctorate in Clinical Epidemiology at Imperial College London. She spent 11 years conducting research in South Africa, where she also completed her public health medical specialty training. There, she established a Research Initiative for Cities Health and Equity (RICHE), conducting transdisciplinary urban health research focused on generating evidence to support development and implementation of healthy public policies in rapidly growing cities, with a focus on Africa. Research activities include Systems for Health projects: investigating how urban systems (e.g. housing, food) can be harnessed for health; and Health Systems projects: integrated heath systems responses to changing patterns of disease and multimorbidity in the context of urbanisation. She continues this focus , focusing on meso- and macro-level determinants of diet and physical activity.

She has published over 40 manuscripts in high-impact journals, and has given presentations at international academic (urban health, HIV, TB) and non-academic meetings including the United Nations High Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development, New York; and the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, Davos 2018. She serves on several advisory boards including Future Earth and the African Academy of Science Open Research Platform; and is an editorial board member of Lancet Planetary Health, Cities and Health, and the Journal of Urban Health. Profiled in the Lancet journal in 2016, she is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, a 2015 Next Einstein Forum Fellow, and Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study.