Professor Dasha Nicholls

Dasha Nicholls is Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in the Division of Psychiatry at Imperial College London and Honorary Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in Central and Northwest London Foundation Trust. She was National Specialist Advisor on Eating Disorders to NHS England from 2022 – 2026 and is the Clinical and Strategic Director for National Audits and Research at the College Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI), Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), which includes leading the National Audit of Eating Disorders. She is Past President of the Academy of Eating Disorders and Past Chair of the RCPsych Eating Disorders Faculty.

Dasha was integral to transformation of young people’s eating disorders services in England, including delivery of training, and also chaired development of the RCPsych guidance on managing medical emergencies in eating disorders (MEED). Her research focuses on prevention and early intervention for young people’s mental health, including those with feeding and eating disorders and living at higher weight. She co- founded the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Surveillance System (CAPSS) for research into rare disorders and events in child mental health through which three important eating disorders studies have been undertaken.

Phil is a long-standing and enthusiastic GP committed to transforming the NHS through all the means available, including as a clinical director of two PCNs and a director of the Kingston GP Federation. He has a background as a GP educator and has been a local and regional lead on many aspects of care. He is Emeritus Clinical Director Mental Health for NHS England (London), chairing London’s Suicide Prevention Group, advising Thrive London and the Good Thinking website, and senior responsible officer on physical health for those with serious mental illness. Phil is a board member of the Confederation’s Mental Health Network and a non-executive director for South-west London Health Partnerships Ltd developing primary care estate. He is researching the lessons emering from at-scale mental wellbeing programmes around the world. Sean is currently Chair of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and was the former CEO of the NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network from 2016 until May 2024. Sean has been dedicated to raising standards of care and treatment of mental health services and improving lives of those who use services and their carers for over 40 years since training as a mental health nurse in 1979. Sean is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Mental Health and in 2013 was awarded the President’s Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Sean was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Honours List in recognition of his 40 years of service dedicated to mental health service delivery.

Jenny is one of the UK’s leading carer’s experts in eating disorders. 

Jenny’s passion to help other families evolved from her own experience of caring for her son when he developed anorexia at the age of 12. He is now fully recovered and as a first step she wrote Boys Get Anorexia Too. 

Jenny is also one of the lead authors, alongside Prof Janet Treasure, of the New Maudsley Training manual for eating disorders, an internationally recognised and evidence-based programme for carers. 

Jenny was awarded Carer Contributor of the Year 2016 by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK  in recognition of her ongoing work with carers, eating disorder services and in the wider community particularly focusing on preventative work in schools

Daniel Le Grange, Ph.D., is Benioff UCSF Professor in Children’s Health, and Eating Disorders Director, Department of Psychiatry, at the University of California, San Francisco. He also is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at The University of Chicago Medicine. Daniel is a world-leading clinician in treating adolescents with anorexia nervosa, having developed and pioneered Family Based Therapy (FBT), now regarded as the first-line outpatient therapy for medically stable patients.

In collaboration with a colleague at Stanford University, Daniel developed a clinician’s guide for adolescent AN: Treatment manual for anorexia nervosa: A family-based approach (Guilford Press, 2nd Ed, 2013). This manual is now utilised extensively at a global level. He has also contributed to over 400 journal articles, books, book chapters and abstracts.