Maria Michail

Dr Michail is an Associate Professor and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham, UK. Dr Michail completed her doctorate at the University of Birmingham in 2006. Her doctorate research took place at the Early Intervention Service in Birmingham and focused on the prevention and early detection of emotional disorders, and specifically social anxiety disorder, in young people with first-episode psychosis.

Dr Michail is leading the self-harm and suicide prevention research group at the Institute for Mental Health. Her work focuses on understanding the processes that underlie self-harm and suicidal behaviour in young people with multiple vulnerabilities; and, using this knowledge to develop evidence-based interventions and clinical decision support systems to improve young people’s care and outcomes. In 2021, Dr Michail was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship to explore how systems modelling and simulation can inform strategic decision making for suicide prevention in young people aged 12-25 in the UK and Australia. Dr Michail is the Co-Chair of the International Association for Suicide Prevention Special Interest Group “Suicide Prevention in Primary Care”. Dr Michail’s research has had a demonstrable impact on UK policy and practice. Her research has informed the development of an educational resource on youth suicide assessment and management for General Practitioners which has been adopted by the Royal College of General Practitioners in the UK. Dr Michail is a member of the Birmingham Suicide Prevention Steering Committee.