Sir Simon Wessely FRS is the Regius Chair of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IOPPN), part of King’s College London (KCL), the first and only such chair in the United Kingdom.  He is also a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley and also King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts.

After studying medicine and History of Art at Cambridge, he finished his medical training at Oxford 1. He obtained the MRCP in Newcastle, before moving to London to train in psychiatry at the Maudsley. He is an active clinical academic psychiatrist, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999) and became a Fellow of the Royal Society (2021). He is a Past President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2013-17) and the Royal Society of Medicine (2017-2020).  He chaired the government’s Independent Review of the Mental Health Act  (2017-19), soon to be law.   He was Interim Dean of the IOPPN (2022-23) and is now a Non Executive Director of NHS-England.

After a Master’s and Doctorate in epidemiology, his research career began in unexplained symptoms and syndromes and then military health. In 2003 he founded the King’s Centre for Military Health Research. He remains the Honorary Consultant Advisor in Psychiatry to the British Army, and works with several charities for Veterans.  He was knighted in 2013 for services to military health and psychological medicin.  Sir Simon  was the first Director of the PHE NIHR Health Protection Research Unit for Emergency Preparedness and Response (2014-2021), which was very active during the COVID crisis, and continues to have a broad interest in how people and populations react to adversity and  occupational health and well being.  He has over 1000 publications, with an H index of 111 (Scopus), 150 (Google), and is a “Highly Cited Researcher”, with >110,000 citations. 

However, if you are a follower of the UK radio programme “Desert island Discs” you will know he is a season ticket holder at Chelsea and his favourite occupation is arguing in Viennese cafes.

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