Dr Udita Iyengar

Dr Udita Iyengar is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychosis Studies at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, where she has been based since 2016. She teaches on the MSc Mental Health Studies and MSc Early Intervention in Psychosis programmes. Udita is the academic lead for the Department’s first Lived Experience Advisory Board and led the development of the first-ever postgraduate Lived Experience module at IoPPN, co-produced and delivered entirely by experts by experience of psychosis and carers.

She completed her MSc at University College London and Yale University before undertaking doctoral research at Baylor College of Medicine, focusing on maternal attachment and brain responses to infant cues using fMRI. Udita earned her PhD in 2016 from UCL, studying the neuroscience of attachment and trauma under Professor Peter Fonagy and Dr Lane Strathearn.

At King’s, Udita has coordinated major projects, including the c-VEDA study and the Best Services Trial, and has taught across BSc and MSc psychology programmes. She also leads CORE-UNITY, a student advisory group supporting racially minoritised students at IoPPN, and is committed to improving student wellbeing.

Her research interests include maternal and infant attachment, perinatal mental health, the neuroscience of attachment, integrating lived experience into teaching, and minoritised student wellbeing. She co-leads the Basic Mental Health and Women’s Mental Health module, supervises MSc projects as part of the SLaM/IoPPN Collaboration (SLIC) initiative, and is actively involved in co-production initiatives.

Udita has received two KCL Public Engagement Awards for her collaborative work, including developing a co-produced parenting course and a creative workshop on embedding lived experience in teaching and research. She also contributes to public engagement through blogs, panel events, and workshops, aiming to bridge research and lived experience for meaningful impact.