The Leadership Team.

Our leadership team brings together a wide range of expertise and experience. ​

Dr Nicola Byrom
Network Leader (PI)

Nicola is a lecturer in psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neurosciences (others known as the IoPPN) at Kings College London (KCL). She is also the founding trustee of Student Minds, the student mental health charity. Nicola led the charity through its first 6 years in operation, before stepping back to a trustee role. Nicola has worked with the charity on a number of research projects, including working look at the transition between school and university, the role and experience of friends in supporting students with mental health difficulties, the role and experience of academics in relation to student mental health, the experience of students graduating from university and, most recently, the experience of LGBTQ+ students.

​Nicola’s work with the charity started following her own experience of mental health difficulties and she is a passionate advocate for the role and importance of lived experience in research, service delivery and policy development.

Please note, Nicola is currently on maternity leave and other members of the leadership team are deputising during this period. Please continue to contact smarten@kcl.ac.uk if you'd like to get in touch.

Core Management Team

​The core management team provide management oversight and advice for the network. Most of the core team are involved in the project as one of many different activities and work with the network for an average of one to two hours every week.

Professor Sir Simon Wessely
King's College London

​Sir Simon is professor of psychological medicine at the IoPPN, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is currently president of the Royal Society of Medicine.  As president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Simon prioritised improving education and training for students.

Professor Dame Til Wykes
King's College London

Dame Til is a professor of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation at the IoPPN. Til founded Service User Research Enterprise (SURE), which employs expert researchers who have experience of using mental health services, and received the British Psychological Society’s 2014 Award for Promoting Equality of Opportunity for championing the active role of mental health service users in research. Dame Til and Hussain Manawer won the Guinness World Record for the largest mental health lesson given at the Hackney Empire in 2017. In 2018 she was also part of the largest Youth Summit on Mental Health. 

Dr Chris Sampson
​​The Office of Health Economics

Chris is an economist at The Office of Health Economics. His research interests centre on the value of health and health care and his work has included research into a variety of health problems including depression, personality disorders, and ADHD​.

Professor Peter Ayton
City University

Peter is a psychologist working at the University of Leeds. He is interested in behavioural decision theory and in particular how people make judgements and decisions under conditions of risk, uncertainty and ambiguity. 

Professor Kathryn Ecclestone
​

Kathryn is a professor of education. Drawing on sociology and policy studies, history, psychology and philosophy, her research explores the ways in which preoccupation with citizens’ emotional wellbeing, resilience and mental health changes, in both overt and implicit ways, how educators, the public, students and policy makers think about human subjectivity and, in turn, what they regard as appropriate educational goals, knowledge and practices.

Toby Litt
​Birkbeck University

Toby is a writer and reader in Creative Writing in the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. In 2016, he was one of the co-organizers of the Creative Writing and Mental Health Seminar Series at Birkbeck.

Dr Andy Przybylski
Oxford University

Andy is an experimental psychologist and Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute. His work is mainly concerned with applying psychological models of motivation and health to study how people interact with virtual environments including video games and social media. He is particularly interested is integrating open, robust, and reproducible science with evidence-based policymaking in the digital age.

Dr Alyson Dodd
​Northumbria University

Alyson is a Senior Research Fellow, based in the Department of Psychology at Northumbria University. She is interested in the psychological mechanisms underlying mood swings in non-clinical and clinical populations (e.g. bipolar disorder), and the development and evaluation of interventions. She has a particular interest in student mental health and wellbeing, focusing on understanding factors underlying current and future mental health difficulties in students, its impact on outcomes important to students, and how we can better support students with their mental health and wellbeing.

Dr Eleanor Dommett
Kings College London

Ellie is a Reader in Neuroscience and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) at King’s College London. Although a neuroscientist by training, Ellie is heavily involved in education research and, in particular, specialises in digital education. Her interest in student mental health comes from her experiences working with a mental health/listening charity and supporting students in their studies for almost two decades. She is particularly interested in the impact of how we teach (pedagogy) on student mental health. Additionally, she believes that student and staff wellbeing are interdependent and research must recognise this.

Research Collaborators

​A smaller number of researchers work (and have worked) more intensively with the network over shorter periods of time to support specific activities and research projects. 

Dr Neil Armstrong
​​​Oxford University

Neil is a medical anthropologist based at Oxford University, who uses anthropological techniques to understand patient experiences. He is particularly interested in mental health and the culture of mental health care.  

Sally McManus
​​NatCen

Sally works in the health team at NatCen, the National Centre for Social Research. She is interested in the measurement of mental health and wellbeing and currently runs the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. 

Dr Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt
King's College London

Rebecca’s work aims to bridge the schism between cultural policy and creative practice. She is interested in the relationship between arts and health and wrote the All Party Parliamentary Group report on Arts, Health and Wellbeing. 

Dr Dan Robotham
​​The McPin Foundation

Dan is the Deputy Research Director at the McPin Foundation, a mental health research charity that specialises in putting lived experience at the heart of mental health research methods and the research agenda. He has experience of conducting and managing research across NHS, academic and charity settings. Before joining McPin, Dan was a researcher and coordinator of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) at the Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre; he also worked at the Mental Health Foundation for four years. Before this he was at UCL, where he coordinated a clinical trial to improve learning disabilities services whilst also completing a PhD on the experiences of those who were taking part in the trial.

Management Staff

Jo Ward
​Network Coordinator

Jo coordinates the activity of the network by supporting the Leadership Team, researchers and student collaborators. She also manages the social media and communications related to the Network. She has prior experience volunteering with the Samaritans and is currently an Impact Research Volunteer with Nightline. Prior to her Coordinator role, she worked at institutions including UCL and the University of Cambridge where she project managed programmes related to university outreach and Widening Participation.