King's College London

Professor Irene Higginson, Professor Cathryn Lewis, Professor Happé CBE, Professor Janet Treasure, Professor Lucilla Poston and Professor Terrie Moffitt have been named in the Research.com ranking which takes into account the number of publications and citations made in their specific field.

The academics from the University span eating disorders, palliative care, the early life origins of health and disease, and neuroscience, demonstrating King’s research power in health and life sciences.

Professor Janet Treasure, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience

Professor Treasure, who ranked 11^th in the UK, is a Professor of Adult Psychiatry based in the Department of Psychological Medicine in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. She has a specific research interest in the field of eating disorders.

She added: “At that time patients on the unit were invited to join a randomised trial that compared the efficacy of family versus individual psychotherapy on the 5-year outcomes post discharge. The trial clearly showed that for those treated with family therapy within 3 years of the onset of their illness had a superior outcome to those treated when the illness either had followed a longer course or had developed at a later phase of adolescence. This sparked my interest in clinical academic research.

“First, it led to the twin research that I undertook with Tony Holland to study the factors that predisposed to the development of an eating disorder. This work stream (funded for the most part by carers with lived experience) has found that the risk to develop anorexia nervosa involves a combination of metabolic and psychological factors. Unfortunately, the question of how to help those with a protracted and/or a more diverse form of illness remains unsolved. I hope that the combination of research involving people with lived experience, a major strength in this field, and recognition of the unfulfilled need that we will find the answers.”

Professor Irene Higginson OBE, from the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care

Professor Higginson is Director of the Better Health & Care Hub, Founding Professor of the Cicely Saunders Institute, Honorary Consultant in Palliative Medicine, NIHR Emeritus Senior Investigator and Fellow of the Academy of Sciences. Her research has transformed understanding of palliative and end-of-life care, improving treatments, symptom management and access to care. She has published more than 960 papers, with over 64,000 citations, and was awarded an OBE for Services to Medicine in 2008.

Professor Cathyrn Lewis, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience

Professor Lewis is Head of School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences and Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Statistics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. Her research has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of the genetics of psychiatric disorders. Through her research group, the Statistical Genetics Unit, she applies her statistical training to identify the inherited genetic variants that contribute to mental health disorders. She is an Executive Director of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and is Co-Deputy Lead of the Trials, Genomics and Prediction theme at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

Professor Lucilla Poston, from the Faculty of the Life Sciences & Medicine

Professor Poston’s research focusses on the early life origins of health and disease, including the role of maternal nutrition and complications in pregnancy on the lifelong health of the child. She leads the 'eLIXIR Born in South London' cohort of maternal and childhood data which provides real time electronic health records for life course research. Professor Poston is President of the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG) and was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2009. In 2017 she was awarded a CBE for Services to Women’s Health.

Professor Terrie Moffitt MBE, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience

Terrie Moffitt MBE is Professor of Social Development at King’s College London since 1996 and Nannerl O. Keohane University Professor of Psychology at Duke University, USA. Her expertise is in the areas of longitudinal methods, developmental theory, clinical mental health research, neuropsychology and genomics in behavioural science. She is the Associate Director of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, which follows a 1972 birth cohort in New Zealand, and founded the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study (E-Risk), which follows a 1994 birth cohort in the UK. She has received major honours including the APA’s Early and Distinguished Career Awards, the Royal Society–Wolfson Merit Award, the Klaus-Grawe Prize, the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, the NARSAD Ruane Prize and the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. She is a US National Academy of Medicine Fellow and received an MBE in the 2023 King's Birthday Honours for her services to social science.

“It’s terrific that many of this year’s top 50 women scientists are mental health researchers; such an important part of health, and where the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's is the undisputed lead.”

Professor Francesca Happé CBE, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience

Professor Happé is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. She is known for her extensive research on autism, particularly in under-researched groups such as girls, women and older adults. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences and past-President of the International Society for Autism Research. She has received the British Psychological Society Spearman Medal and President’s Award, the Experimental Psychology Society Prize and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, and in 2021 was awarded a CBE for Services to the Study of Autism.