Professor Paul Pharoah is a Research Scientist in the Department of Computational Biomedicine at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. He qualified in medicine from the University of Oxford and subsequently trained in public health medicine before joining the CRC Human Cancer Genetics group at the University of Cambridge and subsequently completing a Cancer Research UK Senior Clinical Research Fellowship. He was appointed to a personal Chair at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge in 2012.

As a medical doctor with training in public health, Professor Pharoah's research group has led in studies to uncover the genetic basis of ovarian cancer. He is a leading researcher in the international Ovarian Cancer Genetic study. He has published over 600 papers reporting original research, as well as numerous book chapters and review articles.