Co-PICS Team

Professor Kam Bhui

CI 

Kam is Professor of Psychiatry and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, CHiMES Collaborative group lead, Synergi Collaborative Centre Director, University of Oxford

Kam researches socio-cultural risk and protective factors, to prevent and reduce inequalities in population mental health & suicide. Kam is especially interested in understanding the drivers of health inequalities, including by ethnicity and gender, and developing preventive actions in populations through policy and practice. Kam deploys novel anthropological, sociological & epidemiological research methods to optimise quality, safety & improve access to treatments. His academic work contributes to prevention, reducing inequalities, building capacity, engaging the public, and addressing stigma to improve outcomes.

Dr Roisin  Mooney 

Co I 

Roisin is a Postdoctoral Researcher, Synergi Collaborative Centre Project Manager, CHiMES Collaborative, University of Oxford. 

Roisin has experience in managing funded multi-centre NHS research studies and trials. This has entailed communicating with vast multidisciplinary teams, gaining knowledge in research ethics, governance and processes (in both the NHS and Academic Institutions), managing budgets, and continually monitoring data. She has a PhD in Health Psychology Research which entailed working with ethnic minority populations. 

Roisin currently works with the Synergi Collaborative Centre, a five year initiative funded by the Lankelly Chase Foundation to reframe, rethink and transform the realities of ethnic inequalities in severe mental illness and multiple disadvantage. 

Professor Dawn

Edge

Co-I

Dawn is a professor of Mental Health and Inclusivity in the Division of Psychology and Mental Health in the School of Health Sciences.

Dawn has a strong commitment to integrating research, policy and practice and to public service. She is actively engaged in working with communities to improve health and wellbeing – especially among those who are marginalised, socially excluded, and experience inferior access to health and care.

Formerly, a Non-Executive Director of two NHS Mental Health Trusts in North West England, She has also held secondments to the National Care Standards Improvement Partnership (CSIP) and its precursor, The National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE). Dawn’s research emanates from a passion to reduce inequalities in access, care and outcomes experienced by under-served communities.

Doreen Joseph

PPI

Rep

Co-I

Doreen is a Black British woman with over 30 years of Mental Health lived experience. Doreen is an advocate, campaigner, trainer, lecturer, researcher and writer in race, mental health, and faith. Doreen has worked with most of the national MH organisations and a few NHS trusts. Doreen's books are on Amazon.

She has co-authored with Prof. Kam Bhui, a chapter in textbook ‘Mind, State and Society: Social History of Psychiatry and Mental Health in Britain 1960-2010’, eds G. Ikkos & N. Bouras, 24/6/21, Cambridge University Press. 

Professor Frank Keating

Co-I

Frank is a Professor of Social Work and Mental Health at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Dr Georgina Hosang 

Co-I

Georgina currently works at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary, University of London. She does research on bipolar disorder, major depression and life stress using various approaches including gene-environment interactions.

Professor Paul McCrone 

Co-I

Paul is a health economist at the University of Greenwich. He was previously based at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London), where he worked for 27 years after having previously worked at the University of Kent. He has worked on many economic studies in health and social care.

He also teaches health economics to Masters level students, supervises PhD students, and has published widely in peer-reviewed journals. He is involved in policy discussions around health funding and is part of the NIHR-funded Mental Health Policy Research Unit. Much of Paul’s work is related to mental health care provision and he has previously conducted work examining the impact of area-level socioeconomic indicators on healthcare utilisation.

Professor Jason Arday

Co-I

Jason is the 2002 Professorial Chair in the Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education. He is a trustee of the Runnymede Trust, the UK's leading race equality thinktank, and the British Sociological Association (BSA). Professor Arday's research focuses on the areas of race and higher education, intersectionality and education ,mental health and education, neurodiversity and cultural studies.

Professor Peter Coventry

Co-I

Peter is Professor of Health in the Department of Health Sciences, University of York. Peter is an applied health methodologist with expertise in evidence synthesis, qualitative process evaluations, and evaluations of complex interventions, especially in public and community health settings.

Dr Michael Larkin

Co-I

Michael is a Reader in The School of Psychology at Aston University, Birmingham. As a researcher he is interested in how people make sense of – and cope with - difficult or distressing experiences. He is particularly interested in the role played by relationships with professionals, peers and family.

Michael’s teaching and supervisory work draws on applied psychology, phenomenology, philosophy of science, implementation and intervention science, meta-synthesis, and co-design.

He has published extensively on approaches to qualitative research, and he has made a significant contributions to the development of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). He has also been involved with the adaptation of an action research/service-development approach called Experience Based Co-Design (EBCD) for us in psychosocial care settings.

Professor Rachel Upthegrove

Co-I

Rachel is Professor of Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health at the University of Birmingham, and Consultant Psychiatrist in the Birmingham Early Intervention Services. Her research interest is within the field of major mental illness; particularly schizophrenia and co-morbid depression in early phases of illness.

Recent projects have developed the investigation of inflammatory models of psychosis and machine learning in prognostic indicators in early phases of developing mental ill health.

Dr Sian Griffiths

Co-I

Sian is a Postdoctoral research fellow working with Professor Upthegrove on the Psychosis Immune Mechanism Stratified Medicine Study (PIMS) and The NIHR aDePP trial. She has extensive experience of working on clinical trials and observational studies within the area of psychosis and youth mental health.

Sian is interested in heterogeneity of treatment outcomes and incomplete recovery in first episode psychosis.

Tanya Mackay

Co-I

Tanya joined the McPin Foundation  in 2019 after moving to the UK from Australia. Her previous work was university-based with a focus on co-design in research and advocacy. Tanya has been involved in developing policy in the mental health space and has an interest in vicarious trauma for people in support roles and research.

She hopes to contribute to improving support for people in these positions, and runs reflective practice sessions at McPin. She has a First-Class Honours degree in social work and uses her practice knowledge of strengths-based and narrative approaches, as well as her lived experience as both a service user and carer, to inform her work.

Dr Tara Morrey

Postdoctoral Researcher

Tara has a background in English teaching and later trained as a counsellor and then a psychotherapist. She was previously the Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer for a Counselling Training programme at Newman University, Birmingham. 

Tara’s PhD focused on how clients and therapists experienced the therapy environment in a voluntary sector and NHS setting. This was an ethnographic study drawing on photo-elicitation, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis interviews and observations.

Tara’s research interests include mental health, cultural adaptation, creative methodologies, Health Inequalities and Co-production.