Shitij Kapur

Prof Shitij Kapur, FRCPC, PhD, FMedSci is the Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences and Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Health), University of Melbourne. Shitij is a clinician-scientist with expertise in psychiatry, neuroscience and brain imaging. He trained as a Psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh, and undertook a PhD and Fellowship at the University of Toronto. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, similarly Board Certified in Canada and has a specialist medical license in the United Kingdom.

Prof Kapur’s former position was Executive Dean Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (loPPN) Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (loPPN) (2010-2016). The 'Institute', also known as the 'the Maudsley', is Europe's largest and leading centre for mental health research and was established nearly a 100 years ago. Under Shitij’s leadership the Institute grew to where it now has over 300 FTE academic faculty, over 1000 research staff, nearly 800 post-graduate students, and an annual turnover of about £110M with over £50M annual research turnover.

Prior to this role, Shitij was Vice-President (Research) for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Toronto (2003-07). CAMH is both a large hospital and university affiliated research institute and is Canada's premier centre for research into mental health and addictions. In 2007, he was recruited to lead the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King's College London, and after a spell as Vice-Dean Research (2008-09) assumed the role of Dean in 2010.

Prof Kapur’s main research interest is in understanding Schizophrenia and its treatment. He has used brain imaging, animals models and clinical studies which have led to a better understanding of antipsychotic action, its relationship to brain dopamine receptor blockade, the role of appropriate dosing of these drugs and has led to the development of the ‘salience’ framework of psychosis and the ‘early onset’ hypothesis if antipsychotic action. He is now working on how ‘biomarkers’ might be best incorporated into psychiatric care and drug development.

Shitij has published 300 peer-reviewed papers, his work has received over 25,000 citations as he has made numerous presentations worldwide. He serves in advisory capacity to public charities and pharmaceutical companies and has received national and international awards including the AE Bennett Award of the Society for Biological Psychiatry, Paul Janssen Award of the CINP. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, UK, and Fellow of King’s College London, UK. He led NEWMEDS, an EU-wide Innovative Medicines Initiative and currently leads STRATA, a UK-wide program to enhance stratified medicine strategies in psychiatry.

Prof Kapur was appointed to the Board in December 2016.