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Contact information


kate.saunders@psych.ox.ac.uk


01865 618330
Fax 01865 618221


Sarah Atkinson
sarah.atkinson@psych.ox.ac.uk

Kate Saunders

DPhil MRCPsych FHEA

Associate Professor

  • Director of Medical Studies
  • Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist
  • Oxford Postgraduate Psychiatry Course Organiser
  • Academic Foundation Lead

Mood instability, Borderline personality disorder, Bipolar disorder

My early research focused on suicidal behaviour, while my doctorate explored psychiatric phenotypes. As part of this work I conducted one of the first studies to distinguish bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder on the basis of cognitive function and social behaviour. In 2014 I was given a NARSAD Young Investigator award by the Brain and Behaviour Foundation to study whether deficits in social cognition are a valid treatment target in borderline personality disorder.  Alongside this, in conjunction with colleagues at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering I set-up, and am the clinical lead for, the AMoSS study, which uses smart-phones and wearable devices e.g. actigraphs, to prospectively explore mood and related behavioural variables in a cohort of bipolar and borderline patients. This has integrated with my current role in the Wellcome Trust funded CONBRIO programme, which focuses on deep and frequent phenotyping of mood instability and the development of new mathematical approaches to the analysis of mood and related data. 

I also the course organiser for the Oxford MRCPsych Course.

I am funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award: Collaborative Oxford Network for Bipolar Research to Improve Outcomes (CONBRIO). I was a graduate scholar at Jesus College Oxford and have been awarded the Florence Stoney studentship by the British Federation for Women Graduates. 

Key publications

Recent publications

More publications