Dr Dasha Nicholls

Dr Dasha Nicholls leads the Child and Adolescent Mental Health research team at Imperial College London. Her research aims to improve understanding and interventions for children and young people (CYP) with feeding and eating disorders and obesity. In particular her research focuses on risk factors and early intervention for disordered eating behaviour, and seeks practical and scale-able solutions, from parent training to policy change, that directly influence outcomes. She is also a practising Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in CNWL Children and Young People's Eating Disorders Service.

Dr Nicholls is a past chair of the Eating Disorders Faculty of the RCPsych and was a member of the RCPsych Board of Trustees and the International Advisory Committee. She led development of the Junior MARSIPAN guidelines for the management of seriously ill patients with anorexia nervosa.

Dr Nicholls served on the NICE guideline committee for eating disorders, the NICE quality standards committee, the NHS England Expert Reference Group developing the commissioning guidance for children and young people’s eating disorders services (CYP EDS), and helped develop the Quality Standards for CYP EDS. In partnership with the South London and Maudsley team, she co-led the National Whole Team training for CYP EDS.

Dr Nicholls is a Past President of the Academy of Eating Disorders, the largest international eating disorders professional association, and instigated development of the British Eating Disorders Society. She was co-founder of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Surveillance System (CAPSS) for research into rare disorders and events in child mental health.