Current Designation: Professor, Dept. of Clinical Psychology, NIMHANS

Current Roles and Responsibilities: Consultant for an adult mental health unit, Officer- In Charge of the ICMR Centre for Advanced Research on Digital interventions for mental health care, coordinator for Positive Psychology unit at the Department and Flourish at NIMHANS Center for wellbeing, Research supervisor for MPhil trainees and doctoral scholars.

Work Experience: Served as the Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology at NIMHANS from 1st of April 2020 to 1st of April 2023. Also, served as Clinical Psychology Faculty for about a decade at Kasturba Medical College (KMC), Manipal before joining as faculty at NIMHANS in 2002.

Research and Clinical Interests: Youth mental health, digital mental health, mental health promotion, application of positive psychology using a public health framework, student mental health & suicide prevention in higher education

Awards and Achievements

•   Received Prof. LGP Achar Memorial Oration award of Indian Psychiatric Society Karnataka Chapter for 2017-2018 for contribution to psychotherapy and related areas at Annual State Conference, KANCIPS-2018 on 31st August 2018, Dharwad.
•  Nominated Microsoft Garage (India). Hackathon 2020 winner (NIMHANS) for Let’s Talk App- in collaboration with Microsoft Research India, Virtual, 6th August 2020.
•   Developed preventive and promotive intervention program modules for young adults in the community
•  Served as primary supervisor of research at M Phil and PhD levels for more than three dozen scholars and most of these have been in the areas of mental health promotion, wellbeing and development of tech-based interventions for mental health.
•  Has led research projects funded by ICMR, ICSSR, CSIR, GOK, MSR and collaborated with her colleagues on several other funded projects.
•   Has extensively published papers in national and international peer reviewed and indexed journals and authored chapters in books on topics ranging from digital mental health, psychological assessments, interventions, correlates of psychological recovery, positive mental health, mental health promotion, spirituality, and resilience.

 Led the development of the following digital platforms

• PUSH-D (Practice and Use Self-Help for Depression) app with funding support from ICMR https://echargementalhealth.nimhans.ac.in/pushd/
•  Wellness-Check app with funding support from ICSSR https://echargementalhealth.nimhans.ac.in/wellness-check/
•  Mind Notes from NIMHANS app in collaboration with MSR and IIIT-B for improving help seeking for common mental health concerns https://mindnotes.nimhans.ac.in/
•  Peer Support forum for young adults to receive basic psychological support from trained peer volunteers https://letstalklifeforum.in/home

Leads the Karnataka site for Multistate implementation project of ICMR on Suicide risk reduction and improving mental wellbeing in school and college students being conducted in collaboration with the State government departments of Health, Education and Medical Education

Leads the ICMR Centre for Advanced Research on Digital interventions for mental health care https://centrefordigitalmentalhealth.in

Contact: seema@nimhans.ac.in, drmehrotra_seema@yahoo.com