Udita completed her MSc from University College London and Yale University and conducted her doctoral research at the Attachment and Neurodevelopment Lab at Baylor College of Medicine (USA) focusing on maternal attachment and brain response to infant cues using fMRI.

Udita completed her PhD in 2016 from University College London with Professor Peter Fonagy and Dr. Lane Strathearn on the neuroscience of attachment behaviours and trauma, and is trained in administering and coding a variety of attachment measures using the DMM model of Attachment and Adaptation.

Udita joined King’s College London IoPPN in 2016 as a postdoctoral researcher at the SGDP, coordinating the c-VEDA project (2016-2017) and project managed the Best Services Trial in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2017-2022). Udita has previously contributed to the KCL BSc Psychology and MSc CAMHS courses and was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Roehampton, lecturing on attachment and the brain. Udita joined the Department of Psychosis Studies as a lecturer in 2022 and teaches on the MSc Mental Health Studies and MSc Early Intervention in Psychosis programmes. She also is project lead for a student advisory group of racially minoritised students at the IoPPN: CORE-UNITY: Coalition for Outreach, Reform, and Empowerment and works toward improving student wellbeing.

Research Interests:

• maternal and infant attachment
• perinatal mental health
• the neuroscience of attachment
• integrating lived experience in MSc teaching
• minoritised student experience and student wellbeing