Rate My Professor Caroline Bell

Professor Caroline Bell is a Professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Otago, Christchurch, Faculty of Medicine, and Head of the Mental Health Clinical Research Unit. She holds the degrees BM BCh from the University of Oxford, MA from the University of Cambridge, MRCPsych from London, and MD from the University of Bristol. A psychiatrist by training, her research specializations focus on the psychological and neurobiological effects of major traumatic events, including the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes and the 2019 Christchurch mosque terrorist attacks. She investigates the full spectrum of responses, from earthquake-related distress and post-traumatic stress disorder to resilience and post-traumatic growth, incorporating factors such as religious coping, culture, spirituality, brain changes from trauma, mental health service utilization after disasters, and the effectiveness of psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

In her career, Professor Bell has held significant leadership roles in New Zealand's responses to these events. After the earthquakes, she acted as clinical advisor to the Canterbury District Health Board on psychosocial responses and led a specialist service treating severe post-traumatic earthquake-related distress. Following the mosque attacks, she served again as CDHB clinical advisor and leads a large Health Research Council-funded study of those most directly impacted. She delivered her Inaugural Professorial Lecture in 2024 on 'Learning from disasters: The psychological and neurobiological effects of earthquakes' and has shared her findings with communities and agencies nationally and internationally. Key publications include Woods et al. (2026), 'Mental health service utilization after natural disasters: A systematic review' in Psychiatric Services; Beaglehole et al. (2025), 'Post-traumatic growth and religious coping in Muslims exposed to the March 15 terror attacks in New Zealand' in Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry; Williams, Bell & Kaufman (2025), 'The thematic series on the psychosocial and mental health impacts of terrorism and collective violence' in BJPsych Open; Woods et al. (2025), 'Psychological interventions for adult earthquake-related post-traumatic stress disorder: Systematic review and meta-analysis' in BJPsych Open; and Woods et al. (2025), 'Treatment outcomes of cognitive behavioural therapy for earthquake-related distress' in Counselling & Psychotherapy Research.