Rate My Professor Sandhya Ramrakha

Dr. Sandhya Ramrakha is Senior Research Fellow and Research Manager at the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit in the Department of Psychology at the University of Otago. She holds a BA, MA, MA(Hons), ClinPsy, and PhD, with her doctoral research at Otago utilizing Dunedin Study data to examine links between mental and sexual health, focusing on risky sexual behaviour. Prior to her current roles, she worked as a Senior Clinical Psychologist in the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services, Australia.

Ramrakha joined the Dunedin Study team in 1998 as lead mental health interviewer and clinical support for the age 26 assessment phase. She continued in various capacities, including as a PhD student, and was appointed Research Manager in 2008, providing administrative research support to the Director and Theme leaders while managing the Study's assessment phases. Her research interests include mental health and psychosocial correlates and consequences of skin conditions. She has co-authored numerous influential publications from the Dunedin cohort, including Islam, S. et al. (2026), 'Social mobility and parenting: Testing associations in a prospective longitudinal cohort study,' Child Development; Bourassa, K.J. et al. (2026), 'PTSD and suPAR: A multicohort investigation of chronic inflammation,' Brain, Behavior, & Immunity; Goldman-Pham, R. et al. (2025), 'Quantifying the impact of early life growth adversity on later life health,' Communications Medicine; Caspi, A. et al. (2017), 'Childhood forecasting of a small segment of the population with large economic burden,' Nature Human Behaviour; and Reuben, A. et al. (2016), 'Lest we forget: comparing retrospective and prospective measurements of child adversity and their adult health consequences,' Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Through her long-standing contributions to the Dunedin Study—a landmark longitudinal investigation now spanning over half a century—Ramrakha has advanced knowledge in developmental psychology, mental health trajectories, and public health policy.