Professor Lina Gega, Chief Investigator
Lina is a Professor of Mental Health at the University of York, in a joint appointment with the Department of Health Sciences and Hull York Medical School (HYMS), where she is Research Lead for Digital Mental Health and Child & Adolescent Mental Health. She is also an Honorary Nurse Consultant in Psychological Therapies at Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys (TEWV) NHS Trust.
Lina completed her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. Her academic leadership roles were at King’s College London, as Programme Director for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Branch Lead for Mental Health Nursing, and at Norwich Medical School, as Deputy Lead for undergraduate (MBBS) psychiatry. She led clinical teams responsible for the commissioning (Norfolk) and provision (Northumberland) of psychological therapy services in primary care and the community. In recognition for her work as university teacher, she received a College Teaching Excellence Award, a College Teaching Fellowship and a Vice Chancellor’s nomination for a National Teaching Award by King’s College London.
Lina has been a lead applicant and co-applicant with teams that secured over £8 million in funding for research with children, young people and adults affected by depression, generalised anxiety, social anxiety, specific phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder and psychosis. Her research on technology enabled interventions and training formed the basis of a single-authored impact case study submitted to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework as part of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience. In collaboration with academic and industry partners, she led the development of a game to support one-session treatment for children with specific phobias, and a virtual environments system that uses chroma-key video capture and digital films to support interventions for social anxiety and for children with social communication difficulties.
As Chair of the Postgraduate Programmes at HYMS, Lina oversees the progression of ~320 masters and doctorate students and the governance of five taught programmes across two host Universities. Her commitment to communicating research and evidence-based practice is demonstrated by her initiated and invited talks and workshops for the benefit of colleagues and lay audiences in the NHS, local authorities and charitable organisations. She is a Joint Editor of Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH), published by the UK’s Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
Role in ComBAT
Lina is the grant holder and chief investigator for ComBAT. She has overall responsibility for the research and oversees the work of the project researchers and manager. She leads on the production of the ComBAT materials and on coordinating supervision by the health professionals of the school and community-based practitioners who will deliver the intervention.