Dr Paula Gomes Alves

Dr Paula Gomes Alves completed her PhD in 2017 in Psychology at the Lisbon University Institute in partnership with King’s College London. Paula has a Masters in Addictions from King’s College London and has also trained as a psychodynamic clinical psychologist at the University of Lisbon in 2007.  Paula has dedicated her career to mental health research, with a focus on the evaluation of psychotherapy interventions from the perspective of service users and therapists. She is trained as a mixed methods researcher, with a special interest in qualitative research methods and participatory designs. Paula has worked with various populations with complex psychosocial needs and from a vulnerable background, including substance use disorders, domestic violence, postpartum depression and birth trauma and homelessness. More recently, she has combined her professional experience as a photographer with her psychotherapy training towards the development and delivery of therapeutic photography workshops. Paula is an on-campus senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Greenwich, as well as a distance learning teaching fellow and module lead in mental health and psychology graduate and postgraduate programmes at King’s College London, where she also acts as a research supervisor to BSc, MSc and PhD students. Prior to beginning her lectureship, she also worked as a full-time research fellow at University College London in various projects focused on digital health interventions.