Scholars' Day 2022
The Mental Health Research UK Scholars’ Day is an opportunity for all our Scholars to present their progress during the past year. Before COVID the day was held face to face but in 2021 and 2022 it has been held by zoom. On both occasions the day was preceded by a rehearsal session held online.
The day was attended by all our Scholars, and most of them were introduced by one of their supervisors. We also had a number of our supporters with us as well as Trustees and volunteers. The first year Scholars have five-minutes to present their plans for their research and subsequent years have 10 minutes presentation with 5 minutes for questions.
As part of the day one of our Scholars (Jess Bradley) interviewed Dr Laila Tata a member of the Scientific Committee and there was also a Question and Answer session with Professor Sir Mike Owen, chair of Trustees.
Room 1: Children and Young People's mental health. Chaired by: Vanessa pinfold
Click on the pictures to see the Students presentation
Egle Padaigate: Cardiff University.
Identification of factors promoting sustained good mental health in children of depressed parents
Katherine Bird: University of Nottingham.
Understanding pathways to self-harm and suicide ideation in high risk young people: an unmissable opportunity for suicide prevention.
Taryn Hutchinson: King's College London
Imagine a brighter future: Development of a school-based positive imagery intervention to target anhedonia in adolescents.
Room 2: Depression and suicide. Chaired by Mike Owen
Kerry Hozhabrafkan:
University of Manchester.
Developing participant-informed methods for acceptable and safe research into suicidal experiences.
Alexandra Schmidt: University of Sussex.
Predicting development and treatment of common mental disorders in older adults.
Niamh MacSweeney: University of Edinburgh.
Understanding biological and psychosocial risk and resilience factors for adolescent depression.
Dr Laila Tata interviewed by Jessica Radley.
Room 3: Schizophrenia. Chaired by Peter Jones
Samuael Knight: King's College London.
Neural mechanisms of positive symptoms in first-episode and prodromal psychosis.
Jessica Radley: University of Sussex.
Understanding the emotional and practical needs of parents with psychosis and those of their children.
Marjan Biria: University of Cambridge.
Understanding the psychological and biological characteristics of Obsessive Compulsive Symptoms in schizophrenia caused by clozapine treatment.
Room 4: MD(Res) Scholars. Chaired by Clair Chilvers Kane
Camilla Day: King's College London.
Qualitative and Quantitative Study of Contextual Factors in Psilocybin-assisted Therapy for Treatment Resistant Depression.
Cate Bailey: King's College London.
Experiences, agency and explanatory models in patients with functional neurological disorders: a qualitative and quantitative study.
Nuala Kane: King's College London.
Contested Capacity Assessment.
5-minute thesis: First year PhD Students
Chaired by Jyothika Kumar
Presentations by:
Jane Hahn
Sophie Chick
Tom Jenkins
Oonagh Coleman
Samantha Mitchell
Noushin Saadullah
The follow up questionnaire was completed by 27 attendees split as in the pie-chart below.
All respondents found the Zoom Platform accessible and the content interesting. All responders thought the standard of presentations was good or very good, and 96% found them good or very good in terms of accessibility to a lay audience.
The length of the sessions seemed to work well.
There were approximately equal numbers voting for online or face-to-face next year, with a handful with no clear preference. One comment also suggested that a hybrid Scholars’ Day could work well.
We asked for overall reflections on the day in a few words:
A lovely day
Lovely to see such engaged scholars!
Engaging and inspiring
very interesting
Great! Nice relaxed chairing by Mike and Peter
Impressive group of scholars.
Everything was great
Very interesting and inspiring.
Excellent and inspiring sessions.
Inspirational. Great that MHRUK is supporting such bright young people.
Very enjoyable and informative day.
It was good.
Informative, interesting event
I felt so greatly encouraged that my fundraising is so well utilised by MHRUK
Interesting and informative in general
Well worth participating and the on-line format made this easy.
Very inspiring, interesting and refreshing to see how young scholars are so dedicated and committed to in-depth research and exploring new boundaries in research
It was great!
I am glad it had come around again so soon..!
Excellent meeting.