Richard Walker is a consultant and honorary professor of ageing and International Health at Newcastle University. He is the clinical lead for the Northumbria Parkinson’s disease (PD) service.

His research interests in PD include epidemiology, psychiatric symptoms, palliative care, respiratory symptoms, exercise and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). He was on the UK PD NICE Guidelines 2017 Development Group and the PD Quality Standard Advisory Committee for NICE. He is consultant lead for the UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network. He has a research interest in other non-communicable diseases in SSA including stroke, epilepsy, hypertension, dementia, fluorosis and frailty.

He was associate international director for SSA for the Royal College of Physicians, London (2016 – 2021) and is the clinical lead for the Northumbria/Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre health link which started in 1999. He was inaugural chair of the Movement Disorders Society African Task Force. He has published over 250 peer review papers.