Dr Thara Rangaswamy

Dr. Thara Rangaswamy  is a psychiatrist by training, the co-Founder and  Vice Chairman, of a not for profit  NGO called SCARF ( Schizophrenia Research Foundation) in the city of Chennai in India. SCARF is a premier centre offering treatment and rehabilitation for and a WHO Collaborating Centre for mental health research.

She has forged research links with leading academic centres globally . She has also initiated several community based programmes and pioneered the use of mobile tele psychiatry. She has over 180  peer reviewed publications.

She is on the Advisory Committee to the Director General of the World Health Organization, Geneva and  on the editorial Board of several reputed journals.She is a commissioner on two Lancet Commissions- on stigma and Psychosis.

She is the first Indian to win an award in 2021 from the Schizophrenia International Research Society ( SIRS) for her research in clinical and community psychiatry .She is an Hon. Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and was awarded the President’s Gold Medal in 2012. In March 2022, she received the Naari Shakti Puraskar award from the President of India, the highest civilian honour for women in India.