Dr Poushali Ganguli is a Research Associate in the Department of Health Service & Population Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. She specialises in the evaluation of mental health interventions and has a particular focus on programmes for children and young people, including those delivered in school settings. Her broader research interests span epidemiology, health economics, digital health and global mental health.

Poushali completed her PhD at King's, exploring the methods of economic evaluation for school-based mental health interventions. She holds a degree in Physiology from King's College London and a Master's in Global Mental Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and King's College London.

Prior to her current role, she coordinated an international cohort study on adolescent brain development and mental health, and worked on the Ebola response at the World Health Organisation. Her current research encompasses several key areas: mindfulness training for adolescent mental health, emotional literacy programmes for children with intellectual disabilities, psychological treatments for young people with epilepsy, and digital health approaches for treating depression in low-resource settings.

Committed to interdisciplinary approaches that bridge health economics, data science, and global health, Poushali is passionate about fostering inclusive research environments and integrating diverse methodological perspectives into her work.

Research interests

• Mental health economics
• Child and adolescent mental health
• School mental health
• Digital health interventions
• Global health
• Interdisciplinary research methods

Teaching

• Economic evaluation alongside clinical trials
• Systematic reviews and evidence synthesis
• International health and sustainable development
• Influence of society and politics on health
• Health policy, economics and management

Expertise and public engagement

Poushali is involved in international interdisciplinary work as a:

• Royster Global Fellow – Working with partners at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to increase awareness and understanding of interdisciplinary graduate education in order to prepare doctoral students for opportunities in an increasingly global academic community.
• Plus Alliance International Interdisciplinary Researcher (PIIR) – Working with partners at King’s, UNSW Sydney and Arizona State University to create and share knowledge that can help solve pressing educational and societal global challenges.

Poushali also supports various public engagement and widening participation activities, such as the IOPPN Youth Awards (Young Economist) scheme, an internship prize to encourage young people to pursue a career in STEM. She has been responsible for managing applications, coordinating visits, planning supervision and work tasks, and supporting winners through a mentoring scheme.