Meet the speaker: Inez Myin-Germeys

 Inez Myin-Germeys is professor of Contextual Psychiatry at KU Leuven in Belgium where she is heading the Center for Contextual Psychiatry. Prof. Myin-Germeys studied theoretical psychology at KU Leuven in Belgium, and did her PhD in Psychiatry at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, where she started her research line on experience sampling methodology in the study of severe mental illness, specifically psychosis. Prof. Myin-Germeys received many awards and personal grants for her work, including two Narsad Young Investigator Awards, an Aspasia award for women in Science, an ERC consolidator grant, and an Odysseus brain gain grant (>5M Euro) to set up the Center for Contextual Psychiatry at KU Leuven.

The Center for Contextual Psychiatry is a large multi-disciplinary research group (30 researchers), focusing on the interaction between the person and the environment in the development of psychopathology. Main research lines include the phenomenology of psychopathology (from a first-person perspective), the study of psychosocial determinants for the development of psychopathology in adolescents, methodological and statistical improvements of the Experience Sampling Method, and the development of new mobile interventions for severe mental illness (called Ecological Momentary Interventions).

Prof. Myin-Germeys is a strong advocate for the inclusion of a first-person perspective both in science and in clinical practice. She is also actively engaged in many activities set up to increase public awareness.