Hannah Lewis
Lead Researcher
Hannah Lewis
Lead Researcher
Dr Mark Freestone
Primary Supervisor
Dr Ruth Taylor
Second Supervisor
Dr Una Foye
Third Supervisor
Dr Erica Cini
External Supervisor
Hannah Lewis
Hannah is a PhD student at the Centre for Psychiatry and Mental Health, Queen Mary University of London, and the Chief Investigator on the Body Image and Ethnicity study. At QMUL, she previously completed an MSc in Cultural and Global Perspectives in Mental Health Care (2017), and an MRes in Psychological Therapies (2019). Hannah’s PhD project builds on her research in body dissatisfaction prevention, cultural inclusivity and involvement to co-produce a cultural adaptation of The Body Project – a body dissatisfaction prevention programme with the most robust evidence base in the field. She also acts as an external supervisor for the MSc Eating Disorders and Clinical Nutrition course at UCL. Hannah has also worked in a senior role for a national mental health charity across their research, policy and practice areas, where she still consults on policy areas and facilitates qualitative research. She led on a number of key areas, including: children and young people’s mental health; co-production; early intervention in psychosis (EIP) services; and physical health inequalities among people with a ‘severe mental illness’ (SMI).
Dr Mark Freestone
Mark is a Reader in Mental Health and Director of Education & Deputy Director of the Wolfson Institute of Population Health. He originally trained in sociology but now works in public and forensic mental health, conducting epidemiological and health services research into the efficacy of treatments for those with mental health problems, specifically those at risk of violence or becoming victims of violence. Mark is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at East London NHS Foundation Trust and a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. He has recently consulted on forensic mental health issues for NHS England and the London Violence Reduction Programme, as well as films and television shows such as the BBC America drama series Killing Eve and Channel 4 prison drama Screw.
Dr Ruth Taylor
Dr Taylor trained in psychiatry in Manchester and then as a senior trainee at the Maudsley and the Institute of Psychiatry where she completed her PhD. Her PhD research was a study of factors predicting persistence of medically unexplained symptoms in primary care. Dr Taylor runs a liaison psychiatry clinic at the Royal London and has both a clinical and research interest in somatisation and medically unexplained symptom syndromes. Together with a dermatology colleague Dr Taylor has established and runs an innovative psychodermatology clinic at the Royal London Hospital. The clinic is involved in clinical research in psychodermatology particularly looking at treatment approaches for patients with unexplained dermopathy. Dr Taylor is co chair of the UK Association of Psychodermatology which seeks to promote understanding of the interface area between psychiatry and dermatology and improve services for patients, and training for staff as well as stimulating research in this field.
Dr Una Foye
Dr Foye started at KCL in March 2019 to join the Mental Health Nursing team at IOPPN. Her work has previously focused on understanding individuals’ experiences of living with mental health problems to help improve how we develop and improve services to meet the needs of those using them. This interest comes from her work in the third sector providing support services to young people with eating disorders in Northern Ireland. Dr Foye completed her PhD at Ulster University exploring the role of emotional intelligence in the onset and maintenance of disordered eating and has published and presented a number of papers to help develop an understanding of how we can utilise emotions within interventions and within recovery. Beyond this area of specialist interest, she has worked on numerous research studies focused on patient experience with a particular interest in inpatient mental health settings and acute medical settings. This work includes the national study into patient experience: EURIPIDES with Queen Mary University of London and Warwick University, and Mental Health in Acute Care Study at City University London. Most recently Dr Foye was awarded an LSI Centre for Mind Public Participation grant to develop a public event using comedy as a creative approach to talking about mental health and eating disorders. The event was a great success, showing new approaches to talking about mental health. This engagement work remains an area she's interested in and wants to further develop.
Erica Cini
Erica is a clinical academic at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London and at University College London. Clinically, she practices as a consultant psychiatrist at East London NHS Foundation Trust where she is the lead psychiatrist for the Eating Disorders Intensive Pathway for Children and Young People. Erica is also a clinical advisor to Beat, the national eating disorder charity. Her academic interests are higher education and eating disorders research.