Our Research Advisory Group

Professor Robin Banerjee

Professor Robin Banerjee is Head of the School of Psychology and a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Sussex. He leads the CRESS (Children’s Relationships, Emotions, and Social Skills) research lab, and he works closely with practitioners and policymakers in the areas of education and mental health. A core applied focus of the CRESS lab is the development and evaluation of school-based strategies to support young people’s social and emotional functioning.

Professor Tamsin Ford, CBE

Tamsin Ford is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. She completed her clinical training at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals and her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.  She moved to Exeter University Medical School in 2007 and to Cambridge in 2019. Her research focuses on the effectiveness of services and interventions to support the mental health of children and young people. Her work has an increasing focus on schools and education, and includes the patterns of service use, service organisation, the accurate identification of psychopathology and the generation or synthesis of evidence for interventions directly with families or indirectly through practitioners working with children. The important interface between mental health and education is her particular focus of interest.

Professor Neil Humphrey

Neil Humphrey is the Sarah Fielden Chair in Psychology of Education at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include children’s mental health, social and emotional learning, and special educational needs. When he is not working at the University, Neil moonlights as an unpaid taxi driver for his three daughters.

Dr John Ivens 

John is the executive head teacher of the Bethlem & Maudsley Hospital School and is an acting principal educational psychologist.  He is a professional adviser, on quality and research issues, to the children's counselling charity Place2Be. Alongside these professional roles John's research interests include: developing on-line and individually administered children's well-being measures (happiness and the social experience of school); the effects of being bullied on children's well-being; children's drawings; exploring the effectiveness of applied behaviour analysis in the education of autistic pupils, and the prediction of successful pupil reintegration into mainstream education and training.

Professor Edward Melhuish

Edward Melhuish is Professor of Human Development at Birkbeck, University of London and Research Professor at the University of Oxford. He is also a Principal Investigator on the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) in England and Northern Ireland and Executive Director of the National Evaluation of Sure Start. Professor Melhuish is an internationally recognised expert in the study of child development and childcare and has extensive experience with longitudinal studies. He was a Principal Investigator of studies of day care and family life in the 1980s, which had considerable influence on sections of the 1989 Children Act. He has also conducted research on child development, parenting and childcare in several european countries, on behalf of the European Commission.

Dr Fiona Pienaar

Fiona was the founding Chief Clinical Officer and is now the Senior Clinical Advisor for Mental Health Innovations / Shout, and a Clinical Lead for the Whakarongorau Aotearoa New Zealand Telehealth Services. She was previously the Clinical Director for Place2Be. Fiona completed a PhD in Behavioural Science at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland, New Zealand, a MEd in Counselling (UoA), a Professional Certificate in Coaching (Henley Business School, England) and various other counselling, teaching and special needs qualifications. Fiona has a background of over 30 years of teaching and counselling in schools, counsellor education in higher education institutes, educational and mental health resource development, academic and clinical supervision, private practice and mental health consultation, research, media interaction and writing. 

Dr David Trickey

David currently works as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Trauma and Maltreatment Service at the Anna Freud Centre, London (AFC). He is part of the staff team running the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) courses for Children and Young People. 

Dr Mark Ungless

Mark Ungless is Director of Data Insights at Mental Health Innovations, the charity behind Shout 85258, the UK's first free, 24/7, confidential text support service for anyone who is struggling to cope. He has over 20 years of experience conducting research in the fields of psychology and neuroscience, with a focus on the neural systems involved in learning, memory, and motivation. Before joining Mental Health Innovations, Mark was Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Director of Postgraduate Studies at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences at Imperial College London, during which time he was also Education & Engagement Secretary for the British Neuroscience Association. Prior to that he held a lectureship and then a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford, following postdoctoral research training in Houston, San Francisco, and Oxford. Mark has a BSc and DPhil in Experimental Psychology and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Liz Greetham

Over the last 30 years, Elizabeth has analysed and invested in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the United States, Europe and Japan. Her primary focus has been on assessing clinical trials of products under development across all therapeutic categories, the probability of their success and potential commercial viability. In this capacity she has worked closely with senior commercial, research and executive managements around the world as well as academic and regulatory scientists. Between 1999 and 2004, Elizabeth was CEO and Board Member of DrugAbuse Science, a private biopharmaceutical company, dedicated to developing prescription medications to treat alcoholism and heroin and cocaine addiction. She has also sat on seven publicly quoted US Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Company boards.

Dr Margaret Murphy

Margaret currently works as a Clinical Adviser at the Anna Freud Centre; as a tutor on the University of Cambridge medical undergraduate course and as a Medical Member of the Mental Health Tribunal and as a Specialist Adviser at the Care Quality Commission. Most of Margaret’s career until recently has been spent working directly with children, young people and their families and this is the aspect of work which she finds most inspiring and rewarding. 

Prof Stephen Scott CBE

Stephen Scott CBE, Professor of Child Health and Behaviour at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), King’s College is Director of the National Academy for Parenting Research (NAPR), based at the IoP at King’s, where he leads a team of psychologists, clinicians and researchers investigating how best to improve parenting in order to enhance child outcomes.

Catherine Roche

Amy Capel

Sarah Golden

Dr Rebecca Kirkbride

Judie Millward

Nikhil Naag

Catherine Hayes-Fisher

Stacey Price

Debbie Simmons

Kate Smith

Dr Kati Toth

Jemma White

Jacqui Segal

Dr Hannah Wilkinson

Simon Yates

Hizkia Yolanda