Rate My Professor Sukhwinder Shergill

Professor Sukhwinder Shergill is Professor of Psychiatry at Kent and Medway Medical School, University of Kent, and Consultant Psychiatrist and Director of Research at the Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust since October 2021. He also holds the position of Professor of Psychiatry and Systems Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. Shergill trained in medicine at University College London, where he completed a BSc in Psychology, before undertaking psychiatry training at UCL and higher training at the Maudsley Hospital, London. He obtained his PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London in 2002. His career includes heading the Cognition, Schizophrenia and Imaging Laboratory (CSI-Lab), serving as founding director of the King’s Centre for Innovative Therapies from 2016 to 2019, and leading MSc programmes in Mental Health Studies and Organisational Psychiatry and Psychology at King’s College London for a decade. He has supervised over 20 PhD students and held various teaching and examining roles, including module leader for the Advanced Psychosis module in the Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health MSc at King’s College London.

Shergill’s research employs neuroimaging techniques to investigate brain functions and structures underlying schizophrenia, focusing on positive symptoms such as hallucinations and paranoia, as well as cognitive and negative symptoms like memory, attention, and social interaction deficits. He extends this expertise to other psychiatric illnesses and leads commercial clinical trials with pharmaceutical companies including Boehringer Ingelheim, Takeda, Roche, and GlaxoSmithKline. He has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications, including highly cited works such as 'Mapping auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia using functional magnetic resonance imaging' (Archives of General Psychiatry, 2000, 906 citations), 'Treatments of negative symptoms in schizophrenia: meta-analysis of 168 randomized placebo-controlled trials' (Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2015, 881 citations), and 'Evidence for sensory prediction deficits in schizophrenia' (American Journal of Psychiatry, 2005, 541 citations). His contributions have earned awards including Psychiatric Academic Researcher of the Year from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2015), Innovative Teacher of the Year at King’s College London (2009), and the Association of European Psychiatrists Research Prize (2002). Shergill serves on the editorial board of the British Journal of Psychiatry since 2004, holds multiple committee roles such as member of the Wellcome Trust Career Development Awards Interview Committee, and engages in public outreach through campaigns like Better Health – Every Mind Matters and artistic collaborations.