Prof Paul Wilkinson’s main job is Clinical Dean at the University of Cambridge, directing the Clinical Medicine course.  Some major priorities of his work include improving integration within this complex course; improving support for students; and improving Equity, Diversity and Inclusion – for our students, their future patients and our staff.  An important component of this is improving awareness of, and support for students and staff with, neurodiversity, across the university.

Prof Wilkinson is also Professor of Youth Mental Health, conducting research in the epidemiology and treatment of self-harm and depression, in adolescents and young adults.  He also conducts research in clinical education, in particular racism in medical education.

Prof Wilkinson works as an Honorary Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust Paediatric Psychology Service in Cambridge.  In this, he mainly carries out assessments of the complex mental health needs of children and adolescents with physical health problems.

Dr Orben investigates how digital technologies affect adolescent psychological well-being and mental health. She is particularly interested in the potential cognitive, biological and social mechanisms that underlie this link in both non-clinical and clinical populations, and the influence of individual differences. Her results have shed new light on pressing questions debated in policy, parenting and mental health, having informed advice given by national and international experts such as the UK Chief Medical Officers and the US Surgeon General. 

Dr Orben has won a range of prestigious prizes including the Inaugural MRC Early Career Impact Award, the British Neuroscience Association Researcher Credibility Prize, the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science Mission Award and the UK Reproducibility Network Dorothy Bishop Early Career Researcher Prize. 

Dr Orben is a Programme Leader Track Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge and a Fellow at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge. She leads the Digital Mental Health programme at the MRC CBU. 

Professor Tamsin Ford is an internationally renowned Child Psychiatric Epidemiologist who researches the organisation, delivery, and effectiveness of services and interventions for children and young people’s mental health.

Her work is inherently translational and cross-disciplinary, and focuses on how to promote mental health, prevent mental ill-health and respond effectively to children and young people who are currently struggling. After completing her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, she moved to Exeter University Medical School in 2007, where she helped to recruit mental health researchers working across the life-span in addition to developing a thriving Child Mental Health Research Group. 

Tamsin’s research covers the full range of psychopathology and agencies, practitioners and interventions that relate to the mental health of children and young people. Her work has direct relevance to policy, commissioning and practice. She led the clinical rating for the national child mental health survey, which provided child mental health statistics for the NHS Plan. 

Tamsin was awarded a CBE for services to Psychiatry in 2019. She provides research advice to Place2Be and is a board member of ACAMH.