Ellen Townsend

Professor Ellen Townsend is an award-winning academic in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham where she leads the Self-Harm Research Group. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Nottingham Institute of Mental Health. Ellen co-leads the UKRI-funded ‘Digital Youth’ programme, a major interdisciplinary research initiative aimed at understanding risk and resilience in the digital world and developing novel digital tools to support adolescent mental health including a new collaborative assessment tool for self-harm (The CaTS-APP). She is also a Co-Investigator at the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre for Mental Health (MindTech) where she co-leads the Children and Young People’s theme.

Her team is internationally recognised for world-leading participatory research, pioneering innovative tools and methods that involve young people across the research lifecycle. Ellen is also Co-Director of Connect Nottingham, a new community research and engagement hub at the heart of the Castle Meadow Campus, funded through a major capital grant from the Garfield Weston Foundation.