Who we are

UIrike is the Professor of Eating Disorders at King’s College London and a Consultant Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. A key focus of her research is the development of brief scalable interventions. She has led the development of MANTRA, a NICE-recommended psychotherapy and of FREED, a multi-award winning early intervention programme. She has also pioneered the use of novel brain-directed treatments in eating disorders. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the EDIFY consortium.

Helen is a senior lecturer in applied psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research is focused on understanding what things put young people at risk of developing poor body image and disordered eating behaviours as they grow up. She has also developed body image programmes for use in secondary schools. Outside of work, Helen can be found tramping around the Pentland Hills or swimming in the sea. She is the co-principal investigator (PI) of the EDIFY consortium.

Karina is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the outpatient adult eating disorder service at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She also conducts research through King’s College London. Karina has helped lead the England-wide scaling of FREED, the early intervention programme for emerging adults with a recent onset eating disorder. She is a Co-Investigator (CI) in the EDIFY consortium.

Heike Bartel is Professor of German Studies and Health Humanities at The University of Nottingham and passionate about the use of literature and art for better health. She has led interdisciplinary AHRC- and Wellcome-funded research projects on eating disorders in men and boys, and together with male experts by experience has designed arts-based training tools used by the RCGP, RCN and several charities. She is particularly interested in the role of films, animation, music, poetry and other writing by those with lived experience to help understand eating disorders better. Most recent monograph: Men Writing Eating Disorders. Autobiographical Writing and Illness Experience in English and German Narratives (2020).

Website: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/hungry-for-words/index.aspx

Iain Campbell started his professional life working as a neuroscientist. He did his PhD in the dept of Psychological Medicine in Newcastle, then moved as a post doc to the US where he worked as a clinical pharmacologist in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland. He then returned to the UK and has been in the KCL Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience. His main interest is in the neurobiological underpinnings of Eating Disorders and their treatment. Thus, over the years, he has worked on the development of neurobiological models of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. In addition, and in parallel, he has been involved in clinical trials of anorexia nervosa that have included neuroimaging, neuropsychology and neuromodulation. He is also interested in the potential neurobiological links between eating disorders and mood, in trajectories in and out of illness, and in the role of learning in the development, maintenance and treatment of Eating Disorders. He has a small open sailboat which was made in 1896 and he spends time trying to ensure that it stays afloat.

Sylvane is Professor of Biological Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London. She leads MRC-funded ESTRA study that explores the aetiology and biopsychosocial risk factors for EDs, using multimodal analyses in adolescents and young adults.

She has made significant contributions to equality diversity and inclusion, acting as Race Equality Co-Champion leading to King’s College London’s Bronze Charter Mark

Katharina is a Clinical Advice Coordinator at Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity. Before starting her role at Beat, she worked in a CAMHS eating disorder service. She completed a masters in Psychology at Edinburgh, after a degree in English at Oxford. She has work on adolescent depression stigma in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, and interdisciplinary work on Wilfred Owen’s psychologist, Dr Arthur Brock, in the Wilfred Owen Association Journal.

Richard Dobson is Professor of Medical Informatics and lead for Bioinformatics and mHealth for the Maudsley BRC and King’s College London, & at the Institute of Health Informatics, UCL. He also co-chairs the Centre for Translational Informatics (CTI).

His research is motivated towards enabling a “panor-omic” view of patients through the integration of genomics data with data derived from patient records, the exposome, social graphs, remote monitoring and imaging to develop strategies for P4 medicine, namely, medicine that is precise, predictive, preventative and participatory.

Software Development Lead and co-investigator

I lead the software development team at the KCL BRC, as part of this work, I founded the RADAR-base platform, an open-source platform built to enable researchers around the world to collect data remotely from patients.

My research is focused on creating novel, non-invasive methods using remote monitoring and sensor technologies to capture rich patient data in real-world settings. My goal here is to bring forward a more responsive and efficient standard of individualised care.

Tara is Programme Lead for Digital Inclusion within the Digital Health and Care Directorate, Scottish Government. She is also a Visiting Fellow at The Glasgow School of Art. Tara is passionate about design-led change across health and social care and has an interdisciplinary background in academia, policy and practice. Tara has expertise in facilitating transdisciplinary collaborations in the context of care and wellbeing, with experience of working at local and national levels. Her approach focuses on creating and enabling a culture of opportunity and empowerment through creative engagement and genuine co-design.

Jonathan is Policy Advisor at Beat, the national eating disorder charity. His work is focused on understanding and influencing NHS and Government policies, and campaigning for investment in capacity-building to break the cycle of underfunding in UK eating disorder research. He conducts policy research for Beat, and on behalf of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Eating Disorders. He advises Beat on the design of its campaigns, leads its response to NHS and Government consultations, and is a member of some national steering/advisory groups.

Nadia Micali, MD, MRCPsych, PhD, FAED, is Senior Lecturer at University College London, Head of research at the center for Eating Disorders for the Capital Region, Denmark and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Geneva Switzerland. Her research focuses on risk factors, genetics, neurobiology, and the epidemiology of feeding and eating disorders. She trained in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, with a focus on Eating Disorders at the Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK, and as an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, before becoming a Senior Lecturer and Consultant Psychiatrist at the Institute of Child health, University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital. Most recently she was Head of Child and adolescent psychiatry services at the University Hospital Geneva, and Consultant Psychiatrist in the Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders team at the University Hospital Geneva that she founded in 2018. In the last 15 years Dr. Micali’s research has focused on understanding biological and intergenerational risk for eating disorders using a developmental perspective. Dr. Micali’s contributions to the field of eating disorders have been recognized by several awards, most notably a prestigious fellowship by the Academy of Eating Disorders in 2014, her election as 2015 President of the Eating Disorders Research Society, and the Academy of Eating Disorders Leadership In Research Award 2022.

Sneha Raman is a Design Researcher at the Innovation School, Glasgow School of Art, with expertise in participatory design. Her research portfolio spans a range of topics and contexts including: mental health of young people from ethnically diverse groups; online safety of young people with learning disabilities; care and emotional support for women around miscarriage; and recovery oriented support for people who use drugs. A key research focus across these contexts is enabling genuine participation from citizens and communities with diverse abilities, sensitivities and lived experiences to co-design future health, wellbeing and care. Sneha is a Co-I in the EDIFY consortium.

Janet is a Professor at King’s College London and a Consultant Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. A key focus of her research has been working with people with lived experience (patients and carers) to co design and codevelop and co deliver new treatments with a particular focus on people with a severe enduring illness or comorbidities such as diabetes. She has had a particular interest in the biological, psychological and social risk and maintaining factors.

I am a Senior Research Fellow & Technical Lead working on mental and physical health data collection and analyses. Currently involved in coordinating and collecting wearables and smartphone data through RADAR-base platform in a number of disease areas including EDIFY.

I was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Dundee working on Assistive Technologies in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. We designed and developed assistive mobile interfaces for people with severe communication and physical disabilities in the context of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). My Ph.D. contributed towards the independent living of wheelchair users under the paradigm of Internet of Things (IoT).

My research interests include Internet of Things, Ubiquitous Computing, Accessibility and mHealth.

Umairah is a Clinical Advice Coordinator at Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, and prior to this worked on the organisation’s national helpline. Her role involves ensuring that Beat’s services, training, campaigns and communications are founded on good quality evidence and guided by lived experience and clinical expertise. She currently leads on Beat’s advocacy work to support people overcome obstacles to receiving the treatment or information they need.