Professor Louise Howard, Professor David Taylor and Dr Philip Timms have received a prestigious awards at the annual Royal College of Psychiatrists International Congress. The awards were announced at this year’s RCPsych International Congress AGM.

Professor Louise Howard received an Honorary Fellowship award. The Honorary Fellowship award is the highest accolade that the College can give members, and is presented to individuals who have demonstrated distinguished service to humanity in relation to the study, prevention or treatment of mental illness or psychiatry throughout their careers.

Professor Howard is Professor in Women’s Mental Health and an Honorary Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Her research programmes focus on perinatal mental health and the relationship between violence and mental health, and she is funded by NIHR, MRC, UKRI and charitable foundations. She became an NIHR Senior Investigator in 2019. She is President of the International Marcé (perinatal mental health) Society.

Professor Howard has won a number of prizes for her research including the Association of European Psychiatrists Research Prize, the Institute of Psychiatry Dennis Hill Prize, the Royal College of Psychiatrists Bronze Medal research prize and the International Marce Society’s Marce Medal for excellence in perinatal mental health research. She chaired the NICE Guidance on Antenatal and Postnatal Mental Health (CG192) and has also been involved in the writing of guidelines on domestic abuse for NICE and WHO.

Earlier this year, Professor Howard was featured in the 25 Women in Psychiatry project, marking the 25th anniversary of the RCPsych Women and Mental Health Special Interest Group by highlighting the stories of 25 amazing women psychiatrists.

Professor David Taylor also received an Honorary Fellowship. Professor Taylor is Director of Pharmacy and Pathology at the Maudsley Hospital and Professor of Psychopharmacology at King's. 

Professor Taylor has been the lead author of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines since their inception in 1993. He is currently a member of the UK government’s Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs. He has formally contributed to five NICE Guidelines, and has also authored over 350 clinical papers in journals such as the Lancet, BMJ, British Journal of Psychiatry and Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 

At the AGM, Dr Philip Timms was awarded a President's medal. Dr Timms is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the IoPPN, and Consultant Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

This year's recipients will receive their awards at an RCPsych ceremony in November later this year.