UAM is an outstanding public higher education institution internationally renowned for the quality of its teaching and research. According to the QS University Ranking, it is the first Spanish institution and the third European university of the World’s Top 50 Universities under 50 years old. It has two campuses, Cantoblanco and the Medical School.
UAM has 67 departments, more than 30,000 students and 3,000 academics and researchers. The University has an office in Brussels aimed at increasing internationalization activities at the European level. UAM is one of Spain’s leading universities in research. It has a large number of high-quality multi- and inter-disciplinary projects in a variety of areas. For instance, the Cantoblanco campus houses 12 research institutes.
The Department of Psychiatry is located at the Medical School Campus and has 4 affiliated hospitals in Madrid. The core clinical facilities for Psychiatry include the following hospitals: Hospital Universitario de la Princesa, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Hospital Universitario Majadahonda/Puerta de Hierro and, the Fundación Jiménez Díaz. The Department of Psychiatry is part of the National Network for mental health research (CIBERSAM). In 2012, the Department was designated as a World Health Organization Collaborative Center for Research and Training in Mental Health Services and its designation has since been renewed.
Project Staff
Core Team
Jose Luis Ayuso Mateos
Group Leader
Jose Luis Ayuso Mateos is a Professor in Psychiatry and Director of the Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization for Research and Training in Mental Health Services at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of nosology, epidemiology, and management and prevention of mental disorders and suicidal behaviour.
He has extensive experience in cohort studies and their implementation in the general and clinical population. He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the revision of the Mental and Behavioral Diseases chapter of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and he is currently part of the WHO Advisory Group on Training and Implementation for ICD-11 MBND.
Katya Barrós March
Predoctoral Researcher
Katya B. March holds a degree in Psychology from UNED and a Master’s in Initiation to Mental Health Research, obtained from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). During her training, she actively participated in a project focused on first-episode psychosis in Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, which consolidated her expertise in the prevention and treatment of mental disorders. Her professional experience includes significant collaboration at the Hospital Universitario de La Paz (IdiPaz), where she was part of the SURVIVE consortium, focused on suicide prevention, and the AGES-CM consortium, formed by leading schizophrenia research groups from the Comunidad de Madrid (CM).
Currently, Katya B. March works as a pre-doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, contributing to the European Project Modular Mental Health Toolbox (MentBox). Her career reflects a continuous commitment to research and advancement in the field of mental health.
Research Consultants
Kerry Rodriguez-McGreevy
Postdoctoral Researcher
Kerry Rodríguez McGreevy has a degree in Psychology and a PhD in Neuroscience from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). She has more than eight years of experience in the field of research, especially in the field of Psychology and Neuroscience.
She has worked as a researcher in the Adult Neurogenesis research group at the Cajal Institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid, in the Department of Translational Neuroscience. Her line of research has focused mainly on the study of learning and memory mechanisms related to adult neurogenesis and its modulation through physical activity, enriched environments, and stress. In this stage, she participated in several research projects, both national (BFU2013‐48907 ‐ R, BFU2016‐77162 ‐ R) and international (COST Action BM1402: MouseAGE). Moreover, she has collaborated with other national research centres such as the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB) in Madrid, the Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CABIMER) and the Universitat de València, as well as international centres (Cambridge University, UK).
She currently works in the Department of Psychiatry of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, as a Project Manager and Researcher, within the European projects in which the research group participates.
Roberto Mediavilla Torres
Postdoctoral Researcher
Roberto Mediavilla has a doctorate in psychology from the National Distance Education University (UNED). He has worked as a researcher at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and at the Research Institute of La Paz University Hospital in Madrid (IdiPAZ) and is a professor at the Madrid University Center of the University of Alcalá (CUNIMAD-UAH).
He has done a research stay at the University of Southampton in the UK. He is a collaborating researcher in three projects funded by the Health Research funds (FIS) of the Carlos III Health Institute and in a project funded by the special COVID-19 funds of the same institute. His main line of work is to study psychological interventions for people with psychosis and other mental health problems. For a few months, he has been studying the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health professionals and other vulnerable populations.
He is a member of the national and international committees of the project “The COVID-19 HEalth caRe wOrkErS (HEROES)” and collaborates in the project “Improving the Preparedness of Health Systems to Reduce Mental Health and Psychosocial Concerns resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic (RESPOND).”
Marta Miret
Associate Professor
Marta Miret is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, which is a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Mental Health Services, and researcher affiliated to the Mental Health Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERSAM). She is the head of the Department of Psychiatry at UAM. Marta Miret has a degree in Psychology, a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology and a doctorate in Clinical and Health Psychology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She was trained at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Boston University (United States), and Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
Since 2014 she has been a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She is the academic secretary of the Department of Psychiatry, member of the ethics subcommittee of the Faculty of Medicine, secretary of the second-year commission of the degree in Medicine, and coordinator of the Erasmus program of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Likewise, she is the principal investigator of various national and European projects. Her field of research is the epidemiology of mental disorders, affective disorders, suicidal behaviour, and the relationship between the state of health and subjective well-being and loneliness. She has published numerous scientific articles in international journals, most of them from the first quartile, and directed numerous doctoral theses.
Maria Cabello
Associate Professor
Assistant Professor. Maria Cabello, with a degree in psychology from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Madrid and a PhD from the department of psychiatry of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, has more than 10 years of experience in the field of research. She has participated in numerous epidemiological and intervention studies in patients with mental disorders (Some examples of these studies include: MHADIE, PARADISE, AGES-CM, Functional rehabilitation in bipolar patients and PATHWAYS). Her work also includes statistical analysis and writing of scientific articles using databases of population studies such as NESARC, WHO World Health Survey, WHO SAGE and Age with Health, always with an emphasis on the issue of disability and functioning in mental disorders. She is currently co-principal investigator of the European EMPOWER project whose objective is the development and evaluation of a multimodal telematic intervention for the promotion of health and well-being and the prevention of disorders in workers of European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
At the teaching level, she participates in the subject of medical psychology in the degree of medicine. At the postgraduate level, she has participated in the training of numerous researchers both nationally and internationally. At the national level, she participates in the interuniversity master’s degree in initiation to research in mental health at CIBERSAM. At the international level, she has participated in two Marie Curie networks for training researchers in the field of mental health (MURINET and MARATONE), being a supervisor and teacher in the training programs of the latter network. She has also participated in the EMERALD master’s degree in mental health training led by King’s College, London. Lastly, she has collaborated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in a face-to-face and online training program for the detection and treatment of mental disorders in health professionals who are not specialists in mental health (based on the WHO guide mhGAP).
Pilar Lopez
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Pilar Lopez-Garcia is the Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Universidad Autonoma of Madrid. She was trained as a psychiatrist and earned a PhD in Clinical Neurosciences (2001) at the University of Navarra. She carried out a postdoctoral fellowship as a Fulbright scholar in the United States, specifically at the University of Pittsburgh and at the University of California-Davis (2002-2004), in the field of cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging in schizophrenia and psychotic disorders.
Her research interests focus on understanding the cognitive neuroscience and neurobiological mechanisms of mental disorders, through neuroimaging techniques and biomarkers, particularly inflammatory biomarkers in affective disorders and on the treatment and prevention of mental disorders.