Kate Tchanturia

Kate Tchanturia is a Georgian-British psychologist who is a professor of psychology in eating disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. She is also Consultant Psychologist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust for the National Eating Disorder Service, and president of the Eating Disorders Research Society. Her main research interests include cultural differences in illness presentations, cognitive profiles in eating disorders, and experimental work in emotion processing and translational research from experimental findings to real clinical practice. Tchanturia has a particular interest in women's mental health and has pioneered the PEACE pathway for autism and eating disorder comorbidity.

Education Tchanturia began her academic career at Tbilisi State University, Georgia in 1977, gaining her BSc in General and Experimental Psychology in 1982 and her doctorate in Experimental Psychology (PhD) in 1988. She relocated to London, United Kingdom in 1997 and was accredited as a chartered clinical psychologist (2001) and later awarded fellowship of the British Psychological Society in 2014. She was then appointed to the role of Consultant Clinical Psychologist for the Outpatient Department of the Institute of Psychiatry in Tbilisi.

After relocating to the United Kingdom, Tchanturia worked as a Clinical Research Fellow at Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London from 1998 to 2003. She subsequently continued her work as a locum psychologist and later Consultant (lead) Clinical Psychologist in 2004 for the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust from and is currently employed in this role. Tchanturia developed group therapy protocols and Cognitive Remediation and Emotion Skills Training (CREST). Most of the clinical manuals have been adapted for younger age groups and translated in different languages.

Pathway for Eating Disorders and Autism Tchanturia's research paved the way for the extensive research at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust eating disorders service. Research from her lab identified an overlap between autism and eating disorders and found that approximately 35% of women with anorexia nervosa have comorbid autism. It was proposed that the presence of both disorders could affect recovery from eating disorders, and could predict a more chronic course of illness. Moreover, females are at elevated risk of their autism going undiagnosed as their difficulties are frequently mislabelled or missed entirely. Therefore, women in eating disorder services who have comorbid autism often go undiagnosed and fail to receive appropriate treatment. This clinical pathway was funded by The Health Foundation and further supported by The Maudsley Charity. The novel pathway was developed using the Institute for Healthcare's Model of Improvement methodology, using an iterative Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) format to introduce change and to co-produce the work with people with lived experience, carers and clinicians. Tchanturia and colleagues collaboratively engaged people with lived experience, carers, and clinicians from the National Eating Disorder Service to develop the PEACE clinical pathway.

As the Principal Investigator of the PEACE Pathway, Tchanturia has been disseminating her findings through several means, including a book, peer-reviewed publications, social media platforms, conferences around the world, interviews with the media and a website. The website includes a range of free resources and blog posts.

Publications Tchanturia has edited several textbooks relating to eating disorders treatment, including: Brief Group Psychotherapy for Eating Disorders (2015) and Cognitive Remediation Therapy (CRT) for Eating and Weight Disorders (2015). In 2021, her book titled Supporting Autistic People with Eating Disorders: A Guide to Adapting Treatment and Supporting Recovery

Tchanturia is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles. Her H index in 2025 is 71. In 2019, Tchanturia was recognised as one of the world leaders in the domain of research on eating disorders treatment, ranking 5th on Expertscape among world experts in anorexia nervosa.

Honours and awards 2020: Distinguished Contribution Award, British Psychological Society, Clinical Practice board 2020: Research Leadership Award, Academy of Eating Disorders 2021: Elected member of Academia Europaea (Academy of Europe) 2021: Highly commended HSJ value awards 2024: National Award of Georgia for outstanding contribution to science 2025: Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)