Alvaro Barrera

Alvaro Barrera is a consultant psychiatrist at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, honorary senior clinical lecturer at Oxford University, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He completed his PhD at Cambridge and joined the neuropsychiatry rotation at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. His research focuses on transforming inpatient mental health care using novel digital and organizational approaches. He is working on introducing optical sensors in acute psychiatric wards to improve care, as well as with the fellows from the Oxford Department of Biomedical Engineering, on digital solutions for clinical needs. He was the PI of the first pilot RCT of CBT for insomnia on an acute inpatient unit and is editing a textbook on inpatient mental health care with Oxford University Press . 

Alvaro is interested in the psychopathology and cognitive neuroscience of severe mental health disorders, including formal thought disorder, auditory hallucinations, and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. He is actively involved in the teaching of medical students as well as the training of foundation doctors and core and advanced psychiatry trainees. He is also undertaking work on empathy and clinical psychiatry, having recently organized the 'Empathy and Clinical Psychiatry Symposium' at Oxford.