Dr Valentina Iemmi is Lecturer in Global Mental Health and co-Director of the MSc Global Mental Health in the Department of Health Service & Population Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience.

Dr Iemmi’s research focuses on global mental health policy. She integrates multi-disciplinary approaches to investigates governance, analysing how and why global actors support mental health worldwide and how they can improve their collective response. Her research includes extensive analysis of external actors investing in mental health in low- and middle-income countries such as governments, and multilateral and philanthropic organisations.

Her work has been published in top-tier journals, including The Lancet Psychiatry, and Social Science & Medicine. It has informed the activities of numerous national and international organisations for which she advised and/or consulted, including World Health Organization, UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and Global Innovation Fund.

Before joining King’s, Dr Iemmi was Senior Lecturer in Global Public Health at University of Essex, postdoctoral LSE Fellow in the Department of Health Policy at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and she held research positions at LSE, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University of Paris V, and University of Paris VIII in France.

She holds a PhD from the Department of Social Policy at LSE, for which she was awarded the 2020/21 Richard Titmuss prize for best thesis. She also has a MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from LSHTM & LSE, and the title of Clinical Psychologist from the University of Paris VIII in France.

Research interests

• Global mental health
• Global health policy: governance and financing

Teaching

• 7PAGRSPT Society and Mental Health