Professor Ilina Singh

About

Professor Ilina Singh is Professor of Neuroscience and Society in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford.

Professor Singh holds a doctorate in human development and psychology from Harvard University, and over the past decade has added to these foundations through extensive work in bioethics, methods innovation and sociology, bringing this interdisciplinary perspective to current research through an approach known as empirical ethics. At present, her team's major research projects encompass: nature-based interventions for flourishing and wellbeing; AI and digital mental health ethics; and global mental health ethics.

Much of her work reflects a longstanding commitment to bringing the first-person experiences of children and young people into ethical evaluation, clinical decision-making and policy-making. Professor Singh's team has pioneered participatory methods for co-design and co-production with young people, qualitative and quantitative methods, mobile technologies and digital games. 

Current Projects

Professor Singh is a co-principal investigator for the Oxford Wellcome Platform for Transformative Inclusive Bioethics (ANTITHESES), where she leads the Design Bioethics Lab on the neuroethics of new forms of collective and collaborative decision-making, including swarm and hive minds, brain-computer interfaces, and novel AI technologies. Her team also contributes to work on global genomic ethics through their global mental health ethics programme. They are funded for various projects through a partnership with the Stanley Centre, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; British Academy; Global Challenges Research Fund, Africa-Oxford Initiative, and others.

She leads the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Flourishing and Wellbeing Theme. This is a major cross-University initiative to build the evidence-base for green social prescribing in mental health and aiming to identify key mechanisms driving positive connections between mental health and nature-based interventions and experiences in young people and in older adults. Work is founded on the principle that 'flourishing' connotes good for the individual and good for the planet. Further work on nature-based programmes for mental health and wellbeing in UK schools is supported by a NERC Agile Initiative grant in partnership with the UK Department for Education: AGILE: Is Nature a Policy Solution to Mental Health in Schools?

Professor Singh is also a co-investigator on a Wellcome Discovery Award (PI Prof Argyris Stringaris, UCL) where her role is to investigate the ethics of 'surprises' (or expectancy violations) in therapies targeting severe social anxiety.

Past projects include: A Senior Investigator Award from the Wellcome Trust for a project entitled: Becoming Good: Early Intervention and Moral Development in Child Psychiatry, 2015-2020. This project follows on from a Wellcome Trust University Award for VOICES: Voices on Identity, Childhood, Ethics & Stimulants: Children join the debate. Projects have added significantly to innovative methods in working with young people. A Wellcome Trust Enrichment Award enabled the creation of a bioethics game on mental health digital phenotyping. Professor Singh also led the UK Ethics Accelerator for Pandemic Emergencies, funded by the UKRI Covid-19 Rapid Response Call, involving five UK institutions and nine leading UK bioethicists as Co-Directors, along with six postdoctoral fellows and the Nuffield Council of Bioethics as a key partner  – a project funded by the Duke of Westminster Foundation for a trial of a peer-support intervention for mental health and wellbeing, aimed at the challenges faced by adolescents during the epidemic crisis.