Our Team

Patrizia is Lecturer at UCL and the Projects Lead of UCL’s Children and Young People’s Mental Health Strategy Implementation. Patrizia’s research focuses on interpersonal violence and mental health. With her research, Patrizia aims to understand why some people are more likely than others to experience and/or to perpetrate violence, how cycles of violence can emerge and persist over time, and how we may go about interrupting them. Learn more about Patrizia’s research here

Rochelle Burgess is Professor of Global Mental Health and Social Justice at UCL. Rochelle's work explores how communities navigate and respond to the political economy of poor health, with a particular emphasis on community-led efforts to address poor mental health and the impacts of broader development issues such as poverty, gender, and racialisation. Her work focuses on transforming systems of health governance through community mobilisation and activism.

Essi is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at UCL. She co-directs UCL’s Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit and chairs UCL’s strategy for Children and Young People’s Mental Health. In her research, Essi is particularly interested in trying to understand how our thoughts and emotions shape our social interactions and keen to use research findings to improve prevention of mental health problems in children and young people.

Rachel is Professor in Child Mental Health at UCL, Head of Postgraduate Studies at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, and Acting Co-director of the UK Trauma Council. Rachel’s research aims to identify psychological and social processes linking trauma exposure the mental health and wellbeing. She is also interested in the development and implementation of mental health interventions for trauma-exposed young people.

Jean-Baptiste is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and Genetics at UCL. Jean-Baptiste’s work builds on several disciplines including developmental psychopathology, epidemiological psychiatry and behavioural genetics. His research mainly investigates the influences of genetic and environmental early risk and protective factors on mental health outcomes, with the goal of tracing causal pathways to the development of mental health difficulties.

Eamon McCrory is Professor of Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at UCL, Co-Director of UCL’s Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit, and Director of Postgraduate Studies at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. His research investigates the impact of childhood maltreatment on emotional development and mental health, how mental health problems can unfold following early adversity, and how we might intervene to promote more resilient outcomes.

Alice is a research assistant on the Safe Relationships Research Project. She is also a PhD researcher investigating the provision of mental health support for care-experienced people, focusing on complex trauma and social support. Alice’s PhD research is supervised by researchers across UCL, University of Bath, University of Bristol, and University of Cardiff, and is supported by people who have had experiences of growing up in the care system in the UK.

Raiza is completing a Master's in Psychological Sciences at UCL and undertaking training in body-based psychotherapeutic approaches. She has a keen interest in supporting individuals with adverse life experiences and is particularly passionate about using research insights to inform the development of interventions that help individuals build safe and healthy intimate relationships.