Leadership & Supervisors

2023-24 SUPERVISOR POOL

Please find below the list of approved supervisors for the programme in alphabetical order by surname. There will be more colleagues added over the academic year 2024/25, so please keep an eye on the website. Prospective supervisors can get in touch with kcato@kcl.ac.uk to enquire about applying.

Dr Laura Andreae

Area of interest: My lab is interested in how synaptic connections and neuronal circuits are formed during development, particularly the role of neural activity and plasticity early on, and how these processes may be disrupted in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. We use a variety of approaches, including electrophysiology, advanced imaging techniques, gene therapy approaches and behavioural studies, to investigate the mechanisms that lead to alterations in neural circuit development and function in genetic models of neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Dr Anna Antreou

Area of interest: Migraine, trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias and chronic facial pain disorders are excruciating conditions, with increased prevalence of depression and suicidal risk. Glutamate has been identified as a major modulator of the pain pathways related to these pain conditions and depression. Targeting directly glutamate receptors in animal models of headaches has been found to effectively block nociception related to these conditions, however such approaches are often associated with significant side effects in humans. Targeting the glutamatergic system indirectly or via a different system not previously investigated may offer a novel treatment approach for these patients while improving associated mental health problems.

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Prof Louise Arseneault

Area of interest: My research focuses on the study of harmful behaviours such as violence and their developmental origins, their inter-connections with mental health, and their consequences for victims. I am taking a developmental approach to investigate how the consequences of violence begin in childhood and persist to mild-life, by studying bullying victimisation and child maltreatment. I also study the impact of social relationships including social support and loneliness on mental health. I am to answer questions relevant to psychology and psychiatry by harnessing and combining three different research approaches: developmental research, epidemiological methods and genetically-sensitive designs. My work incorporates social as well as biological measurements across the life span.

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Dr Mark Ashworth

Area of interest: Primary care mental health; mental health data.

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Dr Ioannis Bakolis

Area of interest: Ioannis is a Reader in Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. Ioannis’s research integrates statistics, epidemiology, implementation science, biology, geography, and computer-science and explores the impact of climate, social and environmental stressors on population mental and physical health over the life course. Ioannis is also leading research on clinical and implementation trials and on how to best evaluate, implement, and scale up population health interventions in healthcare and community settings worldwide. Ioannis is a leading expert on quasi-experimental designs and hybrid studies for policy and health service evaluation with the use of large-scale electronic health records.

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Dr Kirsty Bannister

Area of interest: As a translational neuroscience lab, my team bridges the gap between bench and beside pain research. We seek to molecularly and functionally define pain pathways in healthy/chronic pain rodents and healthy human volunteers and chronic pain patients. We perform back and forward translational experiments with a focus on addressing the problem of failure when it comes to the discovery of novel analgesics. To address invalid targets, our pre-clinical work focuses on defining circuitry in health and pinpointing dysfunction in disease. To address limitations of currently used methods to assess pain, our clinical work focuses on pain paradigms in humans and appropriate stratification of patients into cohorts.

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Prof Gareth Barker

Area of interest: I am Professor of Magnetic Resonance Physics. My research focuses on the application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to neurological and psychological disorder; it involves the development of new image acquisition techniques (and associated data processing) and the optimisation of protocols to make these techniques applicable to patient populations.

I have a particular interest in quantitative MRI techniques such as relaxation time measurements & magnetization transfer (both of which can probe white matter components such as myelin) and diffusion imaging (to investigate tissue microstructure); my current research focuses on “silent” methods for obtaining such data with greatly reduced acoustic noise.

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Dr Dafnis Batalle

Area of interest: Both an engineer and a neuroscientist, I use mathematical tools and computational models to study brain connectivity in typical and atypical development. My research focuses in studying how brain organisation emerges during early development and how subtle alterations in typical brain development trajectories are associated with neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism. My research interests in this area are diverse, including the effects of socioeconomic status in brain development, machine learning applications for neuroimaging and mathematical analysis of complex data, such as the characterisation of brain dynamics from functional MRI.

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Prof Joseph Bateman

Area of interest: Mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to a wide range of neurological diseases. We are interested in how mitochondria communicate with the surrounding nerve cell, through 'mitochondrial signalling' pathways. We and others have shown that when nerve cells are stressed or damaged, as happens in neurological disease, mitochondrial signalling pathways are activated. We are currently also interested in understanding the role of mitochondria in psychiatric disease. In the long term we aim to use our understanding of mitochondrial signalling to develop new therapeutic strategies for neurological diseases.

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Prof Benedikt Berninger

Area of interest: We are interested in exploring the possibility of converting glial cells such as astrocytes into induced neurons by a process referred to as lineage reprogramming. This conversion is induced by expression of neurogenic transcription factors. We have identified reprogramming factors which allow for the generation of cortical interneuron-like cells. One of our mental-health related research questions is whether such induced interneurons can bring about functional improvements in the context of mesial-temporal lobe epilepsy where endogenous interneurons degenerate. Our research into this spans the entire range from molecular mechanisms to restoration of neurological function.

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Prof Sagnik Bhattacharyya

Area of interest: Neurobiology of Psychotic symptoms and disorder, Substance misuse (cannabis), Stress, Experimental medicine, Neuroimaging, Pharmacological challenge, risk prediction, clinical trials.

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Prof Gerome Breen

Area of interest: I am a psychiatric geneticist focussing on the genetics of mood and eating disorders. My goal is to discover the biological basis of common mental health disorders, which will allow better drug discovery and biomarker studies. I lead the UK Eating Disorders Genetic Initiative (EDGI-UK), which has recruited >5000 participants with an eating disorder, and the Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression or GLAD study with my close collaborator Prof Thalia Eley, which has recruited >35,000 participants. Internationally, I work on depression and eating disorder genetics with colleagues in Ethiopia, Sweden, the US, Australia, and elsewhere.

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Prof Sarah Byford

Area of interest: Economic evaluation of services for children and young people with mental health disorders and other vulnerable populations, such as looked after children.

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Dr Nicola Byrom

Area of interest: University student mental health - including settings-based approaches, the impact of pedagogy, loneliness, belonging and peer support.

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Dr M. Jorge Cardoso

Area of interest: M Jorge Cardoso is a Reader in Artificial Medical Intelligence at King’s College London, where he leads a research portfolio on big data analytics, quantitative radiology and value based healthcare. Jorge is also the CTO of the new London Medical Imaging and AI Centre for Value-based Healthcare.

Prior to King’s, Dr Cardoso was a Lecturer at UCL, Technical Lead of the Quantitative Radiology Initiative at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), and Engineering Lead of the Neuro-oncology Flagship Programme at UCL, Institute of Healthcare Engineering.

He has more than 12 years expertise in advanced image analysis, big data, and artificial intelligence, and co-leads the development of NiftyNet, a deep-learning platform for artificial intelligence in medical imaging. He is also a founder of BrainMiner, a medtech startup aiming to bring quantitative biomarkers and predictive models to neurological care.

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Dr Caroline Catmur

Area of interest: I'm interested in social cognition: how people interact with others. Within this I focus on topics including mentalising/theory of mind, empathy, imitation, face perception, and mirror neurons. I'm happy to supervise PhD students on any aspect of clinical social cognition.
My methodological focus is experimental psychology and brain stimulation. I'm particularly interested in researching the neural basis of social cognition and how this may differ in some clinical conditions. There are some exciting brain stimulation methods that we can use to address this question.
My group have carried out work helping to understand social cognition in a variety of clinical and sub-clinical conditions. I'm particularly interested in alexithymia and autism but I'm happy to supervise work that will help us understand (and celebrate) differences in social cognition regardless of 'label' or diagnosis.

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Dr Matteo Cella

Area of interest: Clinical psychology; Psychosis; Psychological Interventions; Cognition; Recovery; Severe Mental Health; Therapy Development; Digital Technology; Digital Interventions.

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Prof Trudie Chalder

Area of interest: I am interested in why symptoms develop and are perpetuated in medically unexplained illnesses and long-term conditions e.g. post infectious syndromes.

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Prof Joseph Chilcot

Area of interest: Dr Chilcot is interested in the role cognitive and behavioural factors have upon physical and psychological symptoms and their trajectories (including distress and fatigue) and how these relate to clinical outcomes. He is also interested in the detection, management and treatment of depression among individuals living with kidney disease and other LTCs.

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Dr Kia- Chong Chua

Area of interest: I am a lecturer in applied health statistics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London. I contribute to analytic and evaluation design decisions, by discerning an interplay between substantive hypotheses, measurement challenges, and statistical modelling approaches, across multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. I am also a researcher-in-residence in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, with a remit to develop evaluation practice and aid the translation of evidence-based knowledge into practice and policy. 

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Dr Nicholas Cummins

Area of interest: The application of speech processing and machine learning techniques to improve our understanding of different health conditions.

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Prof Jayati Das-Munshi

Area of interest: Dr Das-Munshi is a Social and Psychiatric Epidemiologist and Consultant Psychiatrist with an interest in maximising information from large scale/ linked data to understand mental health inequalities. She has an interest in using large-scale linked data to better inform policy, practice and treatment decisions. Specific areas of interest include: ethnic inequalities in mental health, the interface between physical health and mental health and physical health inequalities in severe mental health conditions. She is the cohorts and statistics platform co-lead in the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health. 

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Dr Elizabeth Davies

Area of interest: Elizabeth is an academic public health physician (with previous experience of psychiatry) whose research on cancer inequalities and person-centred care is currently concerned with people who have a previous history of mental health conditions, those who have been diagnosed in prison and people facing breast cancer particularly challenging diagnoses such as malignant brain tumours. Her work has also explored experiences of people from different ethnic groups both in the UK and globally.

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Dr Franziska Denk

Area of interest: The ultimate ambition of our team is to help find a cure for chronic pain. This is a very multidisciplinary challenge, not only necessitating the study of pain pathways, but also of how they are impacted by mental health and/or immune dysfunction. We are therefore very passionate about interdisciplinary research, working with pre-clinical models and human iPSC- or patient-derived cells. Our 'favourite' techniques include FACS, RNAseq, iPSC-derived sensory neuron culture, in vivo & in vitro calcium imaging.

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Dr Kate Devlin

Area of interest: I am a computer scientist working in the department of Digital Humanities in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities. I study artificial intelligence and robotics and their impact on individuals and societies. I am particularly interested in attachment and trust in machines – from companion and care through to sex and intimacy. This includes social interactions with technology: the benefits, the drawbacks and the ethics. I am Advocacy & Engagement Director for the Trusted Autonomous Systems Hub – a collaborative platform to enable the development of socially beneficial robotics and AI systems that are both trustworthy in principle and trusted in practice.

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Dr Tommy Dickinson

Area of interest: Nursing older people, nursing education, equality, diversity and inclusion in health care/education, nursing history.

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Dr Kelly Diederen

Area of interest: I build on mechanisms known to underlie psychosis and aim to determine whether these can sensitively detect whether someone will develop psychosis. Previous work consistently showed that hallucinations and delusions might be the end results of changes in the way that people update their beliefs, whereas confused thoughts can be detected early from subtle changes in speech. In my work, I assessment belief-updating and speech online in people at risk of psychosis, to subsequently assess whether these measures can predict psychosis. If successful, this will help to better allocate treatment to people who most need it.

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Prof Richard Dobson

Area of interest: Motivated by the use of data science, AI, software engineering to translate data-driven insights into measurable patient benefit.

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Prof Eleanor Dommett

Area of interest: My main area of research is investigating novel treatments for ADHD both as adjunct treatments (alongside medication) and standalone treatments with a focus on adults with the condition. I use a range of methods for this including eye tracking and cognitive testing. Currently, we have projects examining the effects of cardio and non-cardio exercise, mindfulness, tryptophan loading and eye movement training. This work comes under the umbrella of the ADHD Research Lab (link below). Additionally, I conduct research around student mental health with a focus on the role of digital education and online learning.

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Dr Johnny Downs

Area of interest: Research focus on the use of novel digital methods to examine childhood onset mental health disorders and treatment outcomes.

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Dr Alex Dregan

Area of interest: Mechanisms of depression-related multimorbidity; inflammatory/microbiome pathogenesis of depression; deep phenotyping of depression in electronic health records; polypharmacy and depression outcomes.

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Dr Yali Du

Area of interest: My research interest lies in machine learning and reinforcement learning, especially in the topics of multi-agent learning, policy evaluation, social agents, and applications to Game AI and data science.

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Dr Rina Dutta

Area of interest: Suicide; self-harm; social media and mental health; smartphone use; clinical informatics; epidemiology; affective disorders; psychosis; relationship between mental/physical health.

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Prof Alice Egerton

Area of interest: Human brain imaging and therapeutics for psychosis and schizophrenia.

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Dr Sherif Elsharkawy

Area of interest: There is a potential link between neurodegenerative diseases and disordered proteins forming amyloids, which subsequently trigger calcification of brain tissues. In our research laboratories, we have discovered indicative calcification patterns occurring in pineal glands of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and frontotemporal degeneration patients. However, there is still a great lack of knowledge on the role of protein disorder and organic-inorganic interactions in brain calcifications.

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Prof Richard Emsley

Area of interest: Clinical trials, causal inference methods, statistical modelling, structural equation modelling, psychological interventions.

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Prof Catherine Evans

Area of interest: Health service research on community-palliative care for adults with multimorbidity including frailty, dementia. Trials of palliative care service delivery interventions.

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Dr Gerald Finnerty

Area of interest: Brain tumours, cannabis, tumour associated seizures, social cognition, functional neurological disorders.

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Dr Delia Fuhrmann

Area of interest: Modelling lifespan development, with a focus on sensitive periods for mental health and neurocognitive development.

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Dr Emma Godfrey

Area of interest: I am a HCPC registered practitioner health psychologist and specialise in developing and testing complex interventions designed to promote behaviour change and aid the self-management of long-term conditions. I am an expert in pragmatic trials and qualitative research and am particularly interested in up-skilling and training healthcare professionals to deliver psychologically informed interventions, as in the PACT and GREAT trials.

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Dr Nicola Hamilton-Whitaker

Area of interest: We study the role of oligodendrocytes in the brain. Exciting new data indicates that oligodendrocytes and the myelin they produce are dynamic and can regulate the plasticity of neuronal excitation. These results indicate that oligodendrocytes may play a role in controlling brain states. We have inducible, conditional oligodendrocyte knockout mice, and using those, we hope to study how oligodendrocytes function. Overactivation of this mechanism can also lead to demyelination, which occurs in many neurodegenerative diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimers. Therefore, we hope to gain more information about when and where this mechanism is active, and to see whether block prevents neuronal hyperactivity and white matter damage.

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Prof Francesca Happe

Area of interest: My main focus is on autism and related conditions, across the lifespan. Mental health for autistic and other neurodivergent people is a key interest, including under-researched conditions such as PTSD. I am also actively involved in research with subgroups on the autism spectrum who are under-recognised, including women and girls, and the elderly.

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Dr Claire Henderson

Area of interest: Developing and/or evaluating interventions to empower people with mental health problems, currently including advance statements; recovery colleges; and anti-stigma interventions.

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Dr Margaret Heslin

Area of interest: Sexual health in people with mental illness, health inequalities in people with psychosis, psychotic major depression, LGBT+ mental health, epidemiology, health economics, use of routine data.

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Prof Robert Hindges

Area of interest: Candidate gene validation in zebrafish models of depression, schizophrenia and autism. We use genome editing methods to create mutations in genes associated with disorders, behavioural assessments, in vivo functional and structural imaging of neural circuits, and high throughput molecule screens for potential therapeutic use.

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Prof Colette Hirsch

Area of interest: Identify and understand key cognitive mechanisms that maintain psychological disorders and distress. Develop novel interventions that target these mechanisms in order to prevent and treat psychological problems more effectively.

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Dr Jan Hoffman

Area of interest: My translational research group is interested in understanding the pathomechanism of primary headache and facial pain disorders. Clinical projects focus on migraine, idiopathic intracranial hypertension, spontaneous intracranial hypotension. Preclinical basic science projects focus on the molecular and hormonal mechanisms influencing nociceptive processing in the trigeminovascular system. 

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Dr Philip Holland

Area of interest: Shared mechanisms underlying migraine and its comorbidities.

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Dr Matthew Hollocks

Area of interest: Young people with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at a disproportionately high risk of experiencing additional mental health difficulties. My work focuses on three main areas 1) improving the mechanistic understanding of the mental health difficulties in ASD; 2) better prediction of outcomes and response to psychological interventions in this population; 3) the development of more effective and accessible (including digital) interventions to improve these outcomes. This work includes the combination of experimental research, use of data from epidemiological studies and routinely collected clinical data, as well the adaptation and development of psychological interventions.

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Prof Matthew Hotopf

Area of interest: Application of epidemiology and informatics to understand overlaps between mental and physical health.

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Dr Tom Jewell

Area of interest: I am a mental health nurse and family therapist with research interests in eating disorders and child and adolescent mental health. I am also interested in measurement, particularly in relation to family interaction. My prior research has investigated predictors of outcome and mechanisms of change in relation to family therapy for adolescent anorexia nervosa. I have also led and been involved in a number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. I am interested in policy, and am the principal investigator for an NIHR-funded study on the impact of out-of-home calorie labelling on people with eating disorders. I am also a co-investigator on a MRC-funded study to develop an eating disorder clinical research network involving CAMHS and adult eating disorder services.

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Dr Huajie Lily Jin

Area of interest: Lily has thirteen years of work experience in health economic evaluation, including model-based and/or trial-based economic evaluation, cost-of-illness study and budget-impact analysis. She is particularly interested in the development and reuse of whole disease models. She has been working on a wide range of different disease areas, including mental health disorders (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression), cancers, kidney diseases, infectious diseases, and orthodontics.

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Dr Matthew Kempton

Area of interest: Dr. Matthew Kempton’s main interests are neuroimaging (particularly structural MRI) in a range of different psychiatric disorders. He recently completed an MRC Career Development Fellowship leading a longitudinal multicentre neuroimaging of individuals at risk of psychosis (as part of the EU-GEI study). Dr Kempton created the ENIGMA VBM analysis tool which he is using to examine structural brain changes in large multinational datasets (>1000 subjects) in patients including those with PTSD, OCD, Early Onset Psychosis and bipolar disorder and is looking to expand this in other psychiatric disorders. He is happy to discuss ideas of research from prospective students.

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Prof Jonna Kuntsi

Area of interest: My research focuses on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and disorders that often co-occur with ADHD. A major focus currently is the development and application of a novel remote measurement technology system for ADHD and associated disorders and traits. Specific research interests include, for example: protective factors such as physical activity; ADHD persistence/remittance; preterm birth as a risk factor; and the relative age effect (the long-term disadvantages for the individuals who were the youngest in a school class).

See more: KCL Profile I ORCID Profile I ADHD Remote Technology (ART)

Dr Will Lawn

Area of interest: My main areas of interest are (1) cannabis and cannabinoids; (2) adolescent drug use; (3) opioid overdose; and (4) ketamine as a treatment for addiction. My expertise particularly lies in experimental cannabis research and observational research with young cannabis users.

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Dr Vanessa Lawrence

Area of interest: Qualitative health research that prioritises the lived experiences and perspectives of key stakeholders, particularly in disadvantaged and marginalised populations. Applying qualitative methods to develop, evaluate and implement therapeutic interventions and services. Director of the QUAHRC.

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Dr Mary Leamy

Area of interest: Mental health recovery/evaluations of interventions to support recovery-oriented practice; staff wellbeing, and evaluations of complex interventions and quality improvement initiatives in nursing/healthcare.

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Dr Gerry Lee

Area of interest: My research is primarily in those with cardiovascular disease and its effect on quality of life, psychological well-being and cognitive function.

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Prof Cathryn Lewis

Area of interest: My research focuses on depression, and how genetics could be used to predict risk, prognosis, severity and to improve treatment response, using pharmacogenomics. We are currently studying how genetics impacts response to antidepressants, with the aim of building predictive models for personalised prescribing.   I run a large research team investigating these areas, with multidisciplinary team members, including clinicians.  

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Prof James H. MacCabe

Area of interest: Prof James H. MacCabe is the Academic Director of the Psychosis Clinical Academic Group of King's Health Partners, which brings together researchers from the IoPPN and clinicians in SLAM to ensure that our research addresses clinically relevant questions, and that our patients benefit from the best available research evidence. He applies the techniques of epidemiology and population research to study the causes, consequences and treatments of psychoses, particularly in treatment resistant schizophrenia and personalized medicine.  He leads STRATA, an MRC-funded multi-centre consortium developing stratified medicine for schizophrenia. He is chief investigator of CLEAR, a multi-centre clinical trial evaluating clozapine versus other antipsychotics for treatment resistant psychosis in young people. He also conducts epidemiological research on psychosis in large datasets, including Swedish population registers and our own CRIS database. As CAG director, he is always interested to hear from anybody with an interest in psychosis research, and if your interest is in an area that he doesn't know much about then he can usually put you in touch with someone who does.   

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Prof Jill Manthorpe

Area of interest: I am an experienced PhD supervisor who is Director of a large National Institute of Health (NIHR) policy research unit. I have broad interests in mental health and social care, dementia care, safeguarding, workforce development, homelessness and other pressing subjects.

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Dr Tom McAdams

Area of interest: Tom leads a team of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers at the SGDP Centre in developing and using genetically informative research designs to study the intergenerational transmission of mental health problems. He works extensively on large family-based databases and is Principal Investigator on the Children of Twins Early Development Study (CoTEDS), the second generation of the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS).

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Prof Grainne McAlonan

Area of interest: Brain imaging and development; understanding the earliest influences on outcomes relevant to neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., autism); brain maturation in children with serious physical illness; and using targeted drugs to investigate the brain chemistry of neurodiversity.

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Prof Ann McNeill

Area of interest: Mental health sequelae of smoking and other nicotine delivery systems such as electronic cigarettes.

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Prof Andrea Mechelli

Area of interest: My areas of interest include:

• How living in urban areas affects the mental health of urban communities (www.urbanmind.info).

• Impacts of climate change (e.g. more frequent heatwaves) on mental health.

• Nature-based solutions to the intersectional challenges of mental health and climate change.

• Development and validation of smartphone apps to monitor and support mental health in real time.

• Development and validation of psychosocial interventions to target social stress and support social functioning in people with mental health conditions.

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Prof Mitul Mehta

Area of interest: My group uses neuroimaging methods and cognitive testing to study the effects of psychiatric drugs on brain function, including the testing of new or repurposed medications. We run experiments in healthy volunteers and patients.

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Dr Gemma Modinos

Area of interest: Investigating the role of emotion-related neural systems in psychosis risk and onset.

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Dr Mariam Molokhia

Area of interest: Dr Mariam Molokhia Reader in Clinical Epidemiology & Primary Care, Kings College London is a clinical epidemiologist with over 10 years expertise in primary care research, pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacogenetics, drug safety and complex traits (cardiovascular, chronic kidney disease, diabetes and immune disease). Her current interests are in developing and evaluating translational medicine strategies for risk prediction, with tailored strategies for stratified medicine. Her work includes development and evaluation of methods for adverse drug reaction (ADR) signal detection and pharmacogenetic associations (Drug induced Liver Injury, Agranulocytosis, Statin associated myopathy and Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis), risk prediction and causality assessment using population based EHRs and other large complex bio datasets, using probabilistic approaches which allow modeling of similarities between exposures and outcomes. She has expertise in the application of statistical methods to bio data addressing time dependent confounding, protopathic bias, uncertainty, clinical utility and evidence synthesis. Translational work includes: risk prediction studies; biomarker evaluation for ADRs and complex traits; and developing modelling applications for stratified prescribing examining drug efficacy/harms. She teaches on the Masters in Public Health and Global Public Health courses, and is supervisor for several undergraduate and postgraduate students (King’s College London MBBS, Masters in Public Health, London Interdisciplinary PhD Consortium, and doctoral students).

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Dr Valeria Mondelli

Area of interest: Interplay between physical and mental health, psychoneuroimmunology, biomarkers of treatment response and personalised interventions for depression and psychosis across lifespan.

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Dr David Morris

Area of interest: I work on applying and developing methodology for the statistical analysis of complex disease genetic data. Most of this involves studies of the genetics of autoimmune diseases (AID) such as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE, Lupus). I am interested in understanding the role of genetics in disease and using this to improve patients’ lives. There are several areas that I am currently working on such as the collection of more detailed clinical data and using this together with genetic data to predict disease progression, comparing genetic association between SLE and other conditions (severe COVID-19 and schizophrenia), developing genetic risk scores for AID and explaining the genetics of sexual dimorphism in AID.

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Prof Rona Moss-Morris

Area of interest: Integrated mental/physical care interventions for people with long term physical health conditions. Developing complex interventions (including digital and clinical trials).

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Prof Declan Murphy

Area of interest: Identifying the causes of, and developing new treatments for, neurodevelopmental conditions. My research extends from fetal time points to adulthood.

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Prof Joanne Neale

Area of interest: Qualitative methods in addiction research, particularly studies exploring patient, service user and carer experiences of addiction and treatment.

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Dr Joana F Neves

Area of interest: The Neves Lab aims understand how the different cellular compartments of the gut – including immune, epithelial, stromal, microbial and neural cells – communicate with each other, to then be able to direct those conversations to promote local and systemic health. We work with 3D organoid models to address our questions.

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Prof Tim Newton

Area of interest: Psychological aspects of dental fear and phobia, including novel approaches to delivering CBT based interventions.

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Dr Zoe Norridge

Area of interest: Culture and mental health. I’ve spent the last decade researching cultural responses to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, collaborating with survivors and artists to explore new ways to represent and live with the aftermath of conflict. My BBC Radio 4 Documentary “Rwanda’s Returnees” details some of this work. I’m currently involved in a large AHRC network exploring ways to expand the time frames of humanitarian interventions. There I ran a project using participatory photography to surface complex stories with a historically marginalised community.

Before focussing on Rwanda my book Perceiving Pain in African Literature examined how and why writers represent pain. In a previous career I worked in health promotion.

My key areas for supervision are: mental health in life writing, literature, film and photography; genocide studies; Testimony; pain/trauma; arts approaches to difficulty. 

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Dr Sam Norton

Area of interest: Mental health and quality of life in people with long-term physical health conditions, patient reported outcome measures, remote assessment of symptoms and physical activity, evaluation of complex interventions.

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Dr Siobhan O’Connor

Area of interest: My research focuses on digital mental health interventions for mindfulness and using a range of co-design methodologies and tools to work with people with a range of mental health disorders to co-create digital mindfulness programmes.

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Dr Juliana Onwumere

Area of interest: Dr Juliana Onwumere’s research interests include:
• Health experiences and inequalities in racial minority groups
• Family impacts of mental and physical health problems across the lifespan
• Carer health and wellbeing
• Violence in mental health
• Racism and discrimination in work settings
• Research equality, diversity, and inclusion 

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Dr Sian Oram

Area of interest: I am a Reader in Women's Mental Health and applied mental health researcher. I conduct research on interpersonal trauma, its intersection with gender and with institutional and societal structures, and its relationship to mental health. I have particular expertise on the topics of domestic violence, sexual violence, modern slavery, and asylum seeker and refugee mental health. I have an interest in developing methods for safe, ethical, and participatory research with and by people affected by trauma and abuse, and expertise in qualitative methods, systematic reviews, and evaluation research.

See more: ORCID profile I KCL Pure Profile | KCL Profile | Section of Women’s Mental Health

Dr Gareth Owen

Area of interest: Consent, decision-making capacity and associated areas (including mental health and mental capacity law and policy); conceptual basis of psychiatry (including psychopathology, formulation, psychiatric ethics)

See more: ORCID profile I Mental Health & Justice I Mental Health, Ethics & Law Research Group

Prof Deb Pal

Area of interest: I am a paediatric neurologist with interest in the genetics and comorbidities of common epilepsies. 

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Dr Susannah Pick

Area of interest: Aetiology and mechanisms in neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly functional neurological disorder, dissociative and affective symptoms/disorders. Psychiatric manifestations of neurological injury/disorder.

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Dr Mariana Pinto da Costa

Area of interest: Dr Mariana Pinto da Costa is a Consultant Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College, London, and is part of the Executive of the NIHR ARC South London and the Champion for Culture, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

She has experience in mental health services research in different countries and in different study designs (systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials, surveys and qualitative research).

She has expertise in developing complex interventions in mental health care, and co-produced with input from patients and community volunteers.

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Dr Kirk Plangger

Area of interest: I'm generally interested in how digital technologies impact (consumer/audience) behaviour. More specifically, I am currently researching how individuals respond to AI-generated content (e.g., AI influencers, Deepfakes, GANs) and Blockchain-enabled applications in the marketplace that facilitate "doing better business" (e.g., circular economy, trust development, provenance assurance).

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Dr Antonios Pouliopoulos

Area of interest: I am interested in using focused ultrasound for non-invasive treatment of brain diseases, and specifically mental health disorders. Therapeutic ultrasound can be used to locally deliver drugs across the blood-brain barrier and stimulate specific brain regions. Both targeted drug delivery and neuromodulation can be used to treat mental health diseases, such as schizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Dr Petroula Proitsi

Area of interest: The overarching aim of my research is to enhance early dementia prediction, track progression and disentangle causal relationships, ultimately providing a powerful roadmap for effective and individualised prevention and treatment strategies. To achieve this, I am investigating the interplay of genetics, omics (such as metabolomics) and the life-course, using cutting-edge statistical genetics, molecular epidemiology, and integrative systems-level approaches, and large-scale clinical and population-based cohorts.

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Prof Kallol Ray Chaudhuri

Area of interest: Clinical and biomarker driven research addressing prediction (digital devices), management (state of the art clinical trials) and endophenotyping (tissue and imaging biomarkers and chort studies) nonmotor aspects of Parkinon's disease.

See more: ORCID profile I King’s Parkinson’s CoE Team

Prof Mark Richardson

Area of interest: Epilepsy, particularly to investigate why a seizure starts at a specific moment, using data from patients and predictive models.

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Prof Beatriz Rico

Area of interest: Our goal is to understand the mechanisms controlling the development and maturation of neural networks in health and disease.

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Dr Angus Roberts

Area of interest: Health informatics, including reuse of the electronic health record EHR, natural language processing of EHR and other text.

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Prof Ulrike Schmidt

Area of interest: Eating disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, obesity, risk factors, comorbidity, early intervention, neuromodulation, psychological treatment.

See more: ORCID profile I Eating Disorders Research Group I FREED from ED

Dr Paul Shotbolt

Area of interest:

• Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). I have been an integral member of the KCH DBS team since 2005. I am leading the development of closed-loop DBS, using machine learning EEG biomarkers, for neuropsychiatric disease.

• Parkinson’s Disease (PD. I was the recent neuropsychiatry member of the NICE Guideline Development Group for Parkinson's disease. I am PI on a multicentre study looking at impulse control disorders in PD.

• Epilepsy / non-epileptic seizures. I am PI on a study examining machine learning EEG analysis for classification of seizure type.

• Functional Neurological Disorders. I am developing applications of virtual reality (VR) and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) for functional neurological disorders.

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Prof Alan Simpson

Area of interest: Inpatient and community mental health nursing and services: experiences, delivery, innovation and policy. Service user involvement, collaboration and co-production.

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Prof Katherine Sleeman

Area of interest: Palliative and end of life care; dementia; epidemiology; routine data; policy analysis.

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Dr Petr Slovak

Area of interest: Digital mental health interventions, user-centred design in mental health.

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Prof Edmund Sonuga-Barke

Area of interest: Neurodevelopmental Disorders especially ADHD and related problems including emotion regulation.

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Dr Arietta Spinou

Area of interest: My research interests include quality of life and chronic lung conditions. I have over 13 years of clinical experience in Greece, Finland and the UK and have led national and international projects in bronchiectasis, cough and quality of life. Join my research group to investigate laughter, breathing and mental health in people with respiratory diseases.

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Dr Jemeen Sreedharan

Area of interest: Neurodegeneration, motor neuron disease, dementia. Cell biology, molecular/RNA biology, mouse models, human stem cells.

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Dr Deepak Srivastrava

Area of interest: Molecular mechanisms of synaptic function and dysfunction in mental health.

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Prof Daniel Stahl

Area of interest: Development of clinical prediction models using statistical and machine learning methods.

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Prof Joerg Steier

Area of interest: Professor Steier's research interest is focused on respiratory physiology, sleep-disordered breathing and the development of new treatments for patients with sleep apnoea. He serves on the executive committee of the British Sleep Society (BSS) as President and works on non-CPAP therapy. His current research programme on "Transcutaneous Electrical Stimulation in Obstructive Sleep Apnoea" (TESLA) is focused on patient-based physiological markers, sleepiness and respiratory symptoms. He is the British representative of the Assembly of National Sleep Societies of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS) and collaborates with several national patient groups and the OSA Alliance.

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Prof Ute Stephan

Area of interest: I research the mental health and wellbeing of entrepreneurs and leader, their drivers and consequences for creating inclusive organisations. I would look for a health professional interested in this broad area for their PhD. Having done two systematic evidence reviews in this area as well as daily studies using self-report measures to link entrepreneur health/well-being to their productivity and creativity. I'm keen to supplement this research with objective data (from clinician diagnosed mental disorders to physiological measures e.g., of stress and allostatic load or positive wellbeing such as oxytocin).

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Dr Sharon Stevelink

Area of interest: Occupational mental health; the impact of benefits systems on people with mental disorders; military personnel and emergency responders; and quantitative methods.

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Prof Robert Stewart

Area of interest: I have longstanding interests in late-life mental health and dementia epidemiology. As Academic Lead for the Maudsley's CRIS data resource, my research focuses on clinical informatics and mental healthcare data science.

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Prof Andre Strydom

Area of interest: Alzheimer's disease in Down syndrome and other co-morbidities associated with Down syndrome (e.g. Diabetes); health inequalities associated with Intellectual disabilities using large datasets; and clinical trials of treatments for conditions associated with Autism.

See more: ORCID profile I KCL profile I LonDownS I LeDeR I EAMHID Interview

Dr Brendon Stubbs

Area of interest: The role of modifiable lifestyle behaviors (e.g. physical activity, nutrition, etc.); lifestyle interventions for people with mental illness; the Mind-Body connection and identifying sources of inequality to improve matters for people with mental illness. 

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Prof Jackie Sturt

Area of interest: She has a particular interest in interventional evaluations and clinical trials in: Emotional wellbeing in long-term physical and mental health; disease specific distress; employment-related PTSD; remotely delivered interventions; and Global health.

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Dr Angela Sweeney

Area of interest: Service user and survivor generated knowledge; childhood trauma/abuse and mental health; trauma and parenting.

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Prof James Teo

Area of interest: Health Informatics particularly Real-World Data and Big Data, including clinical Natural Language Processing and Machine Vision AI. Clinical focus on stroke and neurology.

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Prof Sandrine Thuret

Area of interest: Environmental & molecular regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis and its impact on mental health (from human interventions to cellular mechanisms).

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Dr Kylee Trevillion

Area of interest: My research areas of interest include interpersonal abuse and mental disorders; perinatal mental health.

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Dr Charlotte Tye

Area of interest: My research focuses on the neurocognitive development of young children diagnosed with epilepsy and rare neurogenetic syndromes, with a focus on involvement of individuals with lived experience and charity partnerships. Our lab uses neurocognitive (EEG, eye-tracking), cognitive and behavioural measures within longitudinal studies to characterise and identify predictors of neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, mental health difficulties and family wellbeing. We also work closely with health informaticians and software engineers to explore opportunities for digital technology, data linkage and automated coding of electronic health records for understanding the impact of epilepsy on neurodevelopment.

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Dr Vasiliki Tzouvara

Area of interest: My areas of interest involve psychological trauma, adverse childhood experiences and mental health, post-traumatic stress disorders, psychological interventions, social outcomes such as loneliness and social isolation in mental health and e-mental health.

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Dr Anthony Vernon

Area of interest: Mechanisms underlying risk for psychiatric disorders with a neurodevelopmental origin and the response to psychotropic drugs.

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Prof Kevin Whelan

Area of interest: I research how having chronic gastrointestinal disorders (e.g. IBD, IBS) impacts mental health and quality of life particularly in relation to food, nutrition, eating and drinking. How do these disorders impact on eating behaviours and disordered eating and how can these be managed, including experience based co-design to develop digital interventions to improve mental well-being in these areas. In addition, I investigate how dietary interventions can improve mental health.

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Dr Kimberley Whitehead

Area of interest: I am interested in functional human brain development during the fetal period and early life, and how that drives cognitive and behavioural outcomes including social communication difficulties. My research is especially concerned with the concept of activity-dependent development, i.e. that immature circuits require appropriately patterned electrical activity. I study what happens when this choreography is perturbed, e.g. by acquired brain injury, or disruption of normal sleep and sensory exposure patterns on the neonatal intensive care unit. To quantify the trajectories of such aberrant maturation is important, and I am interested in statistical and signal processing approaches to capture these.

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Prof Steve Williams

Area of interest: Brain imaging of brain disorders across the lifespan.

See more: ORCID profile I Biomarker Research & Imaging for Neuroscience (BRAIN)

Prof Kirsty Winkley

Area of interest: Type 2 diabetes, development of digital interventions to support self-management, psychological interventions.

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Prof Allan Young

Area of interest: Professor Allan Young holds the Chair of Mood Disorders and is Director of the Centre for Affective Disorders in the Department of Psychological Medicine in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.

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Prof Roland Zahn

Area of interest: To understand the cognitive-anatomical underpinnings of social feelings in mood disorders and to translate this into novel risk prediction tools and personalised treatments.

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