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- Professor of Psychodynamic Neuroscience
- Clinical, Edu & Hlth Psychology
- Div of Psychology & Lang Sciences
- Faculty of Brain Sciences
Education: PhD, DCPsych, MBPsS, MSc, MSc, Ptychion
Bio-sketch: Aikaterini (Katerina) Fotopoulou studied psychology in Athens, Greece, before completing her MSc degrees in cognitive neuropsychology and theoretical psychoanalysis at UCL, UK. She went on to conduct her PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Durham, UK and more recently, a Clinical Doctorate in Existential Counselling and Psychotherapeutic Psychology at the NSPC, UK, leading to her registration with the British Psychological Society and the UK’s Health Professions Council.
Awards: In 2016, Katerina was awarded the Early Career Award of the International Neuropsychology Society recognizing her ‘substantive independent contribution to research in the area of brain-behavior relationships in the first 10 years post completion of training’. Previously she has also received the Distinguished Young Scientist Award (2014), by the World Economic Forum and The Elizabeth Warrington Prize (2011), the Early Career Award of the British Neuropsychological Society’s, the Clifford Yorke Prize (2006) the Early Career Award of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society and the Papanicolaou Prize, the Early Career Award of the Hellenic Medical Society of Britain. In 2015, postgraduate students at the Institute of Neurology at UCL awarded her the Tony Pullen Lecturer of the Year Prize.


Position: Professor of Psychodynamic Neuroscience
Gender Equity Lead, Faculty of Brain Sciences
Research Profile: Katerina’s research aims to understand the interface between mental and somatic health and ultimately advance the treatment of related health disorders, including somatic and eating disorders. Katerina has published more than 150 papers and edited the volume Fotopoulou, A. Conway, M.A. Pfaff, D. From the Couch to the Lab: Trends in Psychodynamic Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Funding: Katerina’s grant portfolio totals approximately 4.2 million EUR, including two grants from the European Research Council, a Starting Investigator Grant for the project BODILY SELF and a more recent Consolidator Award for the project METABODY.
Scientific Community Enabling: Katerina is the co-founder of the International Association for the Study of Affective Touch (IASAT),board member of the European Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Society, a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Sciences and past co-chair of its International Convention, the President of the Psychology Section of the British Science Association.
Katerina teaches cognitive and psychodynamic neuroscience and at the UCL PhD programme of her unit and in several cognitive neuroscience MSc programmes at UCL.
She currently supervises 6 PhD students.
2005 | Doctor of Philosophy | University of Durham | |
2001 | Master of Science | University College London | |
2000 | Master of Science | University College London |