Paola Dazzan is Professor of Neurobiology of Psychosis and Vice Dean for International Affairs at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London (United Kingdom). She is a practising clinician and Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

After obtaining her medical degree in Italy, she moved to the UK to pursue her research interests. She trained as a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital, became a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (MRCPsych) in 1998 and a Fellow in 2013 (FRCPsych). She completed her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, in 2006.

She is internationally known for her work on the relationship between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and other biological measures such as neurodevelopmental indices, stress and inflammatory markers, and reproductive hormones, and the onset and outcome of psychoses and severe mental health problems. She studies these phenomena in adolescents and in young individuals in the early stages of psychosis, and in pregnant women and their children. More recently, she has also been focusing on the role of nutrition and the arts on mental health, using neuroaesthetics to investigate the perception, production, and neural response to visual arts and their relation to mental health states.

Her work has been extensively published in high impact papers, with more than 290 publications and recognition as 2019, 2020, 2021 Highly Cited Researcher Awardee by Clarivate Analytics. She has received several prestigious International Awards, including the 2014 Academic Researcher of the Year Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the 2009 NARSAD Independent Investigator Award and an Honorary Membership of the American Psychiatric Association in recognition of her contribution to psychiatry. In 2017 she received the Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s Award for “Outstanding Contribution to Student Experience”, for her work as Lead of Psychiatry teaching in the Medical School.

She has a strong interest in addressing gender inequality and promoting diversity in the academic environment, which she promotes as a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Team of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and as elected President of the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS).

She can be followed on Twitter @paola_DZN.