Gary Macfarlane is Dean for Interdisciplinary Research and Research Impact. He has also held the 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 an Honorary Consultant in the Department of Public Health in NHS Grampian. Professor Macfarlane is Co-Director of the Versus Arthritis/Medical Research Council Centre for Musculoskeletal Health and Work and holds a Visiting Professor position at the University of Southampton. 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 focusses its research in Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases (RMD). The RMD programme has programmes of research on: mechanisms of disease onset and outcome (observational epidemiology), identifying effective management for RMDs (Clinical trials and evidence synthesis),  and designing optimal delivery of care (health services research). The clinical focus is on common complex conditions (including musculoskeletal pain and fatigue, fibromyalgia, and early osteoarthritis), inflammatory conditions, and rare diseases.