We are honored to introduce our distinguished speakers who have significantly contributed to the mental health field through their research, advocacy and practice. By sharing their knowledge and insightful perspectives it can hopefully foster more meaningful conversations around mental health which can inspire the implementation of actionable strategies and development of better frameworks for mental healthcare in the Maldives.
Prof. Dennis Ougrin
Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Global Mental Health Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
Youth Resilience Unit WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Services Development Centre for Psychiatry and Mental Health Wolfson Institute of Population Health Queen Mary University of London
Prof. Dennis Ougrin graduated from medical school in Ukraine in 1998 and came to the Maudsley Hospital in the UK to undertake post-graduate training in child and adolescent psychiatry. He worked as a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, establishing and leading intensive community care services at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He also led the MSc in Child and Adolescent Mental Health at King’s College London and acted as the Chief Investigator of major NIHR, MRC and charity-funded studies in the field of self-harm and intensive community care services. From 2018 to 2020, he served as the editor-in-chief of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, a key clinical journal in child and adolescent psychiatry, psychology and allied disciplines. In September 2021, he was appointed to lead the Youth Resilience Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London.
Prof. Ougrin leads a programme of global mental health studies aimed at developing community mental health services in Ukraine and other Low- and Middle-Income Countries. His main professional interests include the prevention of Borderline Personality Disorder and effective interventions for self-harm in young people.
He is the author of Therapeutic Assessment, a novel model of assessment for young people with self-harm. He also developed and tested an Intensive Community Care Service model for young people with severe psychiatric disorders called the Supported Discharge Service. The model was evaluated in the first randomised controlled trial of an intensive community care service for young people in the UK, and the results informed the development of intensive community care services in the UK and internationally. He has expertise in conducting randomised controlled trials in the fields of psychological therapy and mental health service models.
Prof. Ougrin also works on developing modular psychotherapeutic interventions for self-harm and on understanding the pathophysiology of self-harm in young people.
Prof. Lorna Moxham
Professor of Nursing - Mental Health
Prof. Lorna Moxham is the recipient of international and national awards related to her work. She is currently Professor of Mental Health Nursing and was the Global Challenges Program challenge leader for Living Well, Longer from 2013 - Jan 2021. Lorna has been a nurse for 45 years, 43 of which she has specialized in mental health. She has clinical, academic and governance experience and research expertise in nursing education, particularly work integrated learning, mental health and mental illness and qualitative research methodologies. She has published more than 200 papers, chapters and text books and has a strong track record for supervising higher degree students to successful on-time completion.
Lorna is passionate about mental health, and is the co-founder of Recovery Camp, an evidence based award winning psychosocial intervention and educational program. Recovery Camp provides a research based work integrated learning experience for future health professionals and a trauma informed person centred recovery-oriented program for people living with mental illness. The aim of Recovery Camp's research outputs is to enrich student learning experiences, whilst providing meaningful outcomes for people who are living with mental health issues.
In 2024 Lorna was the recipient of the Australian College of Nursing - National Trailblazer Award for her work with the Recovery Camp program.
Prof. Zoltan Sarnyai
Neuroscientist, Chief Scientific Advisor for the Tropical Brain and Mind Foundations and is on the Executive Committee for the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research.
Zoltán is Professor at James Cook University. He was previously University Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, where he was Director of Studies for Medicine. He trained at McLean Hospital at Harvard Medical School and at The Rockefeller University, supported by the DuPont-Warren Award and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, respectively. His group described the role of stress neuropeptides oxytocin and corticotropin-releasing factor in addiction, for which he was awarded the Richter Prize by the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology and the efficacy of ketogenic diet in preclinical models of schizophrenia. Zoltán was appointed Lady Davis Visiting Professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to study the neuro-metabolic aspects of schizophrenia. He currently serves as Chief Scientific Advisor for the Tropical Brain and Mind Foundations and is on the Executive Committee for the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research. He is Associate Editor for Nutritional Neuroscience and Frontiers in Neuroscience, and editorial board member of Stress.