Professor Ulrike Schmidt recognised in New Year Honours
Professor Ulrike Schmidt has been awarded an OBE for services to people with eating disorders in the New Year Honours list.
Professor Ulrike Schmidt is Professor of Eating Disorders and Director of the Centre of Research on Eating and Weight Disorders (CREW) at King’s College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, which celebrated its launch earlier this year. She is a Consultant Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and she leads the Eating Disorders and Obesity Theme at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.
She has led the development and research on FREED, First Episode Rapid Intervention for Eating Disorders, which is now available in NHS Trusts across the UK and she is the Principal Investigator of a large research consortium on early intervention for eating disorders.
Professor Schmidt’s research has been instrumental in enabling interventions to receive NICE recommendations so they can reach patients and carers. These include guided self-help for bulimic eating disorders, and MANTRA, a first line treatment for adults with anorexia nervosa. She has pioneered the use of novel brain-targeted interventions such as non-invasive neuromodulation for people with persistent eating disorders.
Professor Ulrike Schmidt said:
I am absolutely delighted by this award. I hope this will help to shine a light on the needs and plight of people affected by eating disorders, and on the fact that research really makes a tangible difference to these people's lives.
After completing her medical studies at the University of Dusseldorf, Ulrike went on to train in psychiatry at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and has been a consultant in our Eating Disorders Service since 1998, and Professor of Eating Disorders at the IoPPN since 2006.
David Bradley, Chief Executive of South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, said:
It is wonderful news that Professor Ulrike Schmidt’s decades of clinical service and research has been recognised with this honour. Improving the lives of people with eating disorders has always been at the heart of her work and this award is well deserved.
