Dr Mariana Pinto da Costa is a Reader at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London, and a Consultant Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She is also an Invited Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, University of Porto.

During her medical studies at the University of Porto, she studied abroad for two years (in Italy and Poland) and was awarded the 2009 European Commission prize “Erasmus 2 million – Erasmus Success History.” Passionate about academic mobility, she collaborated with the European Commission in drafting the Erasmus+ Generation Declaration, which she presented at the European Parliament on the future of the programme.

She has been the Chief Investigator and study manager of the Brain Drain study, researching mobility experiences of psychiatric trainees in 33 European countries. She also has clinical and research experience in Africa, where she screened for alcohol, tobacco, and other substance use among primary and mental health care service users in Luanda, while completing an International MSc in Mental Health Policy and Services at the NOVA University of Lisbon, supported by the World Health Organization.

As part of her doctoral research in London, in consultation with people with mental illness and community volunteers, she developed the intervention ‘Phone Pal’, designed to remotely connect patients and volunteers via smartphones, which was tested in a feasibility trial. For this work, she was nominated by Columbia University among the Top 100 Innovative Women Leaders in Global Mental Health and was awarded a fellowship by the World Association of Social Psychiatry.

In 2019, she was nominated by the Royal Society to represent the UK at the 10th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Her PhD work in Social Psychiatry received national recognition with an Honourable Mention for a PhD thesis in the category of Management and Social Sciences at the UK 10th Doctoral Research Awards. In 2026, she received the Prize for Best Portuguese in the UK in the Science, Innovation, and Health category from the Ambassador of Portugal to the United Kingdom.

She has secured more than £2million in research funding as Principal investigator and £22million in infrastructure funding as a co-applicant and Theme Lead.  Her competitive funding has been awarded by   leading organisations, including the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Medical Research Foundation and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. She has led as Chief Investigator clinical trials conducted both in the UK and internationally.

She has published over 200 articles (h-index: 32), including methodological and guidance papers, in leading journals such as The Lancet Psychiatry, World Psychiatry, and Nature.

Research Interests

• Health services research

• Public mental health

• Digital mental health

• Psychosocial interventions

• Clinical trials

• Clinical informatics

• Qualitative research

• Capacity building

She has experience in mental health services research in different methodologies (systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials, surveys and qualitative research).

She has also expertise in developing complex interventions in mental health care, co-produced with input from patients and community volunteers.

Teaching

Mariana provides teaching and supervision to undergraduate students across King’s Health Partners. She supervises PhD and MSc students at King’s College London and at the University of Porto.

Expertise and Public Engagement

Mariana was president of the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees (EFPT), Chair of the Early Career Psychiatrists Committee of the European Psychiatric Association, Chair of the Early Career Psychiatrists Section of the World Psychiatric Association and Vice-President of the Portuguese Association of Researchers and Students in the United Kingdom (PARSUK).  

She is currently the Research Inclusion Champion at the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre: Maudsley, and a member of the R&D panel of adult mental health services at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She is the Chair of the Public Mental Heath Section of the European Psychiatric Association and member of the Ethics Committee, Chair of the Education in Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatric Association and the Academic Lead of the Digital Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Between 2021 and 2026 she was member of the Executive of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) South London.

She is a frequent reviewer for several journals and funding bodies in the UK (NIHR, MRC and ESRC) and internationally (Research Council of Norway and Innovation National Agency in Portugal- ANI). She is a member of the London Advisory Committee of the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit, and she is part of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatric Services and Plos One. Her work has been featured in BMJ News and in the media.

She was profiled as one of the 100 individuals of the University of Porto in its centenary celebration.

Complete lists of her publications with citations can be found in her Google Scholar and Research Gate profiles.