Dr Una Foye is mental health researcher, who has worked at King’s since early 2019. She completed her PhD at Ulster University exploring the role of emotional intelligence when understanding eating disorders, and she has worked across a number of research projects focusing on inpatient mental health services. Most recently, she worked in the Mental Health Policy Research Unit.

Dr Foye has a special interest in eating disorders and using lived experience voices to help improve our understanding of eating disorders and treatment.

Her collaborative research with colleagues in the University of Nottingham, using lived experience voices of men with eating disorders, was awarded Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the 2021 Times Higher Education (THE) Awards.

Research interests

• Eating disorders
• Qualitative methods
• Inpatient services
• Suicide and self-harm
• Lived experience of mental health problems

Expertise and public engagement

Dr Foye developed the “truth about self-harm” guide for the Mental Health Foundation which as selected by young people for inclusion in the national Reading Well project on young peoples mental health.

She has written a number of blog pieces for the Mental Elf on social mental health mental health and male eating disorders.

She is currently Co-Investigator on the Hungry for Words project with colleagues in Nottingham University to develop an animation to raise awareness of male eating disorders in GP’s.

She is a member of the BPS Faculty of Eating Disorders.