Poushali Ganguli

I am a health economist based at the University of Oxford's Centre for Emerging Minds Research, where I research the value of mental health interventions for children and young people. I enjoy slow-motion multitasking (a polite way of saying my work spans clinical trials, evidence synthesis, global health, and the occasional foray into theatre and art).

I dabble in all things relating to school mental health, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, and data visualisation.

My broader research interests span epidemiology, health economics, digital health and global mental health, with a particular focus on what works for children and young people and whether we can afford it.

What I Do

Clinical Trials

I design and conduct economic evaluations alongside clinical trials, including drafting proposals, study protocols, statistical analysis plans and manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals.

Meta-analysis and Evidence Synthesis

I develop systematic review search strategies and contribute to critical appraisal and synthesis, including using AI-assisted approaches. I am developing a living review and evidence dashboard for school-based mental health economic evaluations.

Real World Evidence Studies

I work with large-scale health and administrative datasets, including linked records and population registries, to generate evidence about mental health at population scale.

Teaching and Supervision

I lead tutorials and seminars on postgraduate public health programmes and supervise student research projects. I always enjoy hearing from prospective PhD students interested in children and young people's mental health.

Current Projects

  • iCATSi2i: Identifying and supporting primary school children with anxiety disorders through a school-based screening-to-intervention pathway
  • INUKA: Optimising and scaling the Friendship Bench, a digital lay health worker-delivered intervention for depression in Zimbabwe
  • DAWN: Digital quality improvement intervention for anxiety and depression in young people, co-designed with people with lived experience, across conflict-affected settings in Nepal, Uganda and Lebanon
  • In Isolation: A participatory arts and research project exploring young people's experiences of school isolation booths, in collaboration with Ned Glasier and the Young Vic theatre

Selected Past Projects

  • MYRIAD: Mindfulness training to enhance mental health, wellbeing and social-emotional behavioural functioning in adolescent school pupils
  • MICE: Psychological treatment for young people with epilepsy and associated mental health problems
  • Healthy Start, Happy Start: Video-feedback intervention to help parents with their children's behaviour and development
  • Reflective Fostering: Improving the emotional well-being of foster carers and their looked-after children
  • TENDAITask shifting to treat depression and HIV medication non-adherence in low resource settings

Testimonials

CV

Employment

2026 - Present
University of Oxford

Postdoctoral Researcher

Oxford Centre for Emerging Minds Research, Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology

2022 - Present
iHeed

Academic Tutor

University of Warwick, MSc Public Health and Policy

2015 - 2026
King's College London

Research Associate

King's Health Economics, Department of Health Services & Population Research

2021-2023
IQVIA Solutions

Analyst

Real World Evidence, UK Data Offerings

2021
Healthily (YourMD)

Consultant Epidemiologist

Products, Epidemiology Team

2014-2015
World Health Organisation

Data analyst

Ebola Response Team, Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases

Education

2026
King's College London

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Awarded by AdvanceHE.

2025
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience

PhD Health Economics

Thesis: Exploring the methods for evaluation of school-based health interventions

2019
King's College London

Associateship of King's College (AKC) Ethics, Theology and Philosophy

Essays: The Holy Bible, selected for justification; The journey is essential to the dream

2014
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

MSc Global Mental Health

Thesis: The impact of comorbid personality disorder on the costs of inpatient psychiatric services in people with severe mental illness - an economic analysis

2010
King's College London

BSc (Hons) Physiology

Thesis: The role of mitochondria in cardiac ischaemic preconditioning

General Skills

Quantitative data analysis

85%

Teaching and training

75%

Presentation

80%

Writing

90%

Public engagement

70%

Technical Skills

R

80%

SQL

60%

Stata

90%

Python

20%

HTML / CSS

50%

Microsoft Office

90%

Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator

75%

Interests

  • Samba percussion. I play in a Brazilian samba band (performances for BBC and iTV, carnival in Brazil). Listen to us here.
  • Languages. Currently learning Spanish and Italian.
  • Diving. My three favourite spots are (i) Rainbow Reef, Fiji; (ii) Silfra, Iceland; (iii) Shark Reef, Egypt.

 

 

Publications

2026

  • The Reflective Fostering Programme - Improving the wellbeing of children in care through a group intervention for foster carers: A randomised controlled trial; Midgley et al. in Adoption & Fostering [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2025

  • Cost-effectiveness analysis of psychological therapy in addition to usual care compared with assessment-enhanced usual care alone for children and young people with common mental health disorders and epilepsy; Ganguli et al. in BJPsychOpen [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Long term follow-up of a randomised controlled trial of a brief home-based parenting intervention to reduce behavioural problems in young children; Ramchandani et al. in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Enhancing diversity and quality in health data; Quattroni et al. in Nature Medicine [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2024

  • Emotional literacy programme in special schools for children with a learning disability in England: the ZF-SEND feasibility RCT; Stenfert Kroese et al. in Public Health Research [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Clinical effectiveness of the psychological therapy Mental Health Intervention for Children with Epilepsy in addition to usual care compared with assessment-enhanced usual care alone: a multi centre, randomised controlled clinical trial in the UK; Bennett et al. in The Lancet [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Estimating the lifetime costs and benefits of the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management intervention using data from 30 months follow up of the STARS Trial; Bates et al. in Value in Health [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2023

  • A randomised controlled trial to investigate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for depressed non-responders to Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) high-intensity therapies: study protocol; Barnhofer et al. in Trials [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Uptake and response time for The National Cervical Cancer Screening program in England: Using the IQVIA Medical Research Database (IMRD) to identify associated factors; Davies et al. in The Evidence Base Research Hub [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Do Adolescents Like School-Based Mindfulness Training? Predictors of Mindfulness Practice and Responsiveness in the MYRIAD Trial; Montero-Marin et al. in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2022

  • Service use and costs in adolescents with pain and suicidality: A cross-sectional study; Hinze et al. in eClinicalMedicine [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Effectiveness of universal school-based mindfulness training compared with normal school provision on teacher mental health and school climate: results of the MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial; Kuyken et al. in Evidence-Based Mental Health [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a universal school-based mindfulness training programme compared with normal school provision in reducing risk of mental health problems and promoting well-being in adolescence: results of the MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial; Kuyken et al. in Evidence-Based Mental Health [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • The impact of mindfulness training in early adolescence on affective executive control, and on later mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: a randomised controlled trial; Dunning et al. in Evidence-Based Mental Health [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • School-based mindfulness training in early adolescence: what works, for whom and how in the MYRIAD trial?; Montero-Marin et al. in Evidence-Based Mental Health [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2021

  • The Reflective Fostering Programme – improving the wellbeing of children in care through a group intervention for foster carers: a randomised controlled trial; Midgley et al. in Trials [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Achieving the sustainable development goals: investing in early career interdisciplinarity; Keynejad et al. in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • A brief parenting intervention for routine healthcare settings to prevent enduring behaviour problems in young children: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial; O'Farrelly et al. in JAMA Paediatrics [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • A video-feedback parenting intervention to prevent enduring behaviour problems in at-risk children aged 12–36 months: the Healthy Start, Happy Start RCT; O'Farrelly et al. in Health Technology Assessment [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Update to the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a mindfulness training programme in schools compared with normal school provision (MYRIAD): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial; Montero-Marin et al. in Trials [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • The Role of Schools in Early Adolescents' Mental Health: Findings From the MYRIAD Study; Ford et al. in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • M.I.C.E – Mental Health Intervention for Children with Epilepsy: A randomised controlled, multi-centre clinical trial evaluating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of MATCH-ADTC in addition to usual care compared to usual care alone for children and young people with common mental health disorders and epilepsy – Study protocol; Bennett et al. in Trials [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2020

  • Frequency of Self-reported Unpleasant Events and Harm in a Mindfulness-Based Program in Two General Population Samples; Baer et al. in Mindfulness [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Training School Teachers to Deliver a Mindfulness Program: Exploring Scalability, Acceptability, Effectiveness, and Cost-effectiveness; Crane et al. in  Global Advances in Health and Medicine [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Multisystemic therapy compared with management as usual for adolescents at risk of offending: the START II RCT; Fonagy et al. in Health Services and Delivery Research [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Multisystemic therapy versus management as usual in the treatment of adolescent antisocial behaviour (START): 5-year follow-up of a pragmatic, randomised controlled, superiority trial; Fonagy et al. in The Lancet Psychiatry [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2019

  • Can General Practitioners manage mental disorders in primary care? A partially randomised, pragmatic cluster trial; Anjara et al. in PLoS ONE [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Training teachers in classroom management to improve mental health in primary school children: the STARS cluster RCT; Ford et al. in Public Health Research [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2018

  • The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management programme in primary school children: results of the STARS cluster randomised controlled trial; Ford et al. in Psychological Medicine [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • The clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness of lamotrigine for people with borderline personality disorder: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial; Crawford et al. in The American Journal of Psychiatry [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Lamotrigine for people with borderline personality disorder: a RCT; Crawford et al. in Health Technology Assessment [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • The cost of child and adolescent mental health services; Skokauskas et al. in The Lancet Psychiatry [Publisher] [ResearchGate]
  • Multisystemic therapy versus management as usual in the treatment of adolescent antisocial behaviour (START): a pragmatic, randomised controlled, superiority trial; Fonagy et al. in The Lancet Psychiatry [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

2016

  • Cost and Outcome of Behavioural Activation (COBRA): A Randomised Controlled Trial of Behavioural Activation versus Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression; Richards et al. in Health Technology Assessment [Publisher] [ResearchGate]

Portfolio

KHE Journal Club: February 2026

KHE Journal Club: February 2026

Presentation
University of Oxford: October 2025

University of Oxford: October 2025

Presentation
University of Zimbabwe: March 2025

University of Zimbabwe: March 2025

Presentation
KHE Journal Club: January 2025

KHE Journal Club: January 2025

Presentation
HSPR Seminar: October 2024

HSPR Seminar: October 2024

Presentation
KHE Workshop: March 2022

KHE Workshop: March 2022

Presentation
Tutorial: January 2022

Tutorial: January 2022

Presentation
Times Higher Education: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: investing in early career interdisciplinarity

Times Higher Education: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: investing in early career interdisciplinarity

Video
Instituto Cervantes: Agosto 2021

Instituto Cervantes: Agosto 2021

Presentation
KHE Journal Club: July 2021

KHE Journal Club: July 2021

Presentation
Panel discussion at European Public Health Association Conference – The future of public mental health

Panel discussion at European Public Health Association Conference – The future of public mental health

Video
PhD and Me: The Third Degree – A Forced Pause//Mental Health in the time of COVID-19 – Part 2

PhD and Me: The Third Degree – A Forced Pause//Mental Health in the time of COVID-19 – Part 2

Podcast
PhD and Me: The Third Degree – A Forced Pause//Mental Health in the time of COVID-19 – Part 1

PhD and Me: The Third Degree – A Forced Pause//Mental Health in the time of COVID-19 – Part 1

Podcast
Hands-On Workshops (HOW)

Hands-On Workshops (HOW)

Design
PLuS International Interdisciplinary Researchers(PIIR) programme: Highlighting “Developers”

PLuS International Interdisciplinary Researchers(PIIR) programme: Highlighting “Developers”

Video
PLuS International Interdisciplinary Researcher (PIIR) workshop – Feb 2019

PLuS International Interdisciplinary Researcher (PIIR) workshop – Feb 2019

Video
International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP) Conference; Prague, 2018

International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP) Conference; Prague, 2018

Poster
University of Oxford: June 2018

University of Oxford: June 2018

Presentation
Student Forum: Recruitment

Student Forum: Recruitment

Design
Student Forum: Tea@12

Student Forum: Tea@12

Design
Student Forum: Co-chairs

Student Forum: Co-chairs

Design
Student Forum: Tea@2

Student Forum: Tea@2

Design
Student Forum: Tea&Talk@2

Student Forum: Tea&Talk@2

Design

Contact

Get in touch!