Anke Ehlers

Ehlers currently works at the University of Oxford as Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Experimental Psychopathology.

Along with her husband David M. Clark, she developed a cognitive model for PTSD. Therapies based on this model are recommended for treating PTSD by the American Psychological Association. Ehlers's research has revealed that PTSD is a common issue among emergency medical workers, and that a commonly used therapy for PTSD, psychological debriefing, has little proven therapeutic value.

Professional career Ehlers studied psychology at the University of Kiel and the University of Tübingen, earning a diploma from Tübingen in 1983. She finished her Ph.D. from the same institution in 1985, and earned a habilitation from the University of Marburg in 1990.

She moved to King's College London in 2000, where she led a group that developed a therapy based on her and Clark's model. She returned to Oxford as Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Experimental Psychopathology in 2012; she retains a visiting position at King's College London. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2010, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2014, and is also a member of the Academia Europaea. In 2018 she was appointed Senior Investigator at the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

Personal life Ehlers was born in Kiel, West Germany. She is married to her colleague David M. Clark.