I am honoured to have been made a Fellow of the British Academy, especially at a point in time when anxiety is affecting more people than ever, most notably our young women. It is more important than ever that we tackle this from an interdisciplinary perspective, something that I look forward to discussing with my new colleagues.
Professor Thalia Eley
18 July 2025
Professor Thalia Eley elected a Fellow of the British Academy
Professor Eley joins 92 new Fellows welcomed to the prestigious British Academy, in recognition of scholarly distinction in the humanities and social sciences.
Professor Thalia Eley is Professor of Developmental Behavioural Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, and a leading expert in anxiety and depression in youth. A defining aspect of her work is her creative combination of longitudinal, genetic, experimental and clinical approaches to explore mechanisms underlying the development and treatment of these disorders. She is transforming efforts towards personalised medicine through “therapygenetics”, the study of genetic effects on response to psychological treatment.
Head of Department of the Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Professor Eley also runs the Emotional Development Intervention and Treatment Lab and is particularly interested in understanding predictors of the development and treatment of anxiety and depression. She has led several large studies, and currently co-leads the Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression Study, the largest ever single study of anxiety and depression, and is Director of the Twins Early Development Study, which is the largest longitudinal twin birth cohort in the UK.
Professor Eley has written over 300 empirical papers and received numerous awards including the 2021 Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Spearman Medal from the British Psychological Society, the Lilly-Molecular Psychiatry Award, and the James Shields Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Twin Studies. Her work is highly interdisciplinary using both the twin design and molecular genetic approaches, and drawing on cognitive, clinical and developmental psychology.
One of my first acts as the incoming President of the British Academy is to welcome this year’s newly elected Fellows. What a line-up! With specialisms ranging from the neuroscience of memory to the power of music and the structural causes of poverty, they represent the very best of the humanities and social sciences. They bring years of experience, evidence-based arguments and innovative thinking to the profound challenges of our age: managing the economy, enabling democracy, and securing the quality of human life.
Professor Susan J. Smith PBA, President of the British Academy
This year, Professor Eley was joined in her election to the Fellowship by two other King's colleagues: Professor Erica Carter, Professor of German and Film, and Professor David Papineau, Professor of Philosophy.
The 92 new Fellows of the British Academy represent a broad spectrum of expertise from the study of twentieth-century music and the structural causes of poverty to environmental law and the neuroscience of memory, language, and cognition. They join a community of over 1,800 scholars who share a commitment to advancing the humanities and social sciences. As well as a fellowship, the British Academy is a funding body for research, nationally and internationally, and a forum for debate and engagement.
For more information, please contact Milly Remmington (School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences Communications Manager).
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Professor of Developmental Behavioural Genetics