London, England, United Kingdom
Professor Cecilia A. Essau is a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and the Director of Centre for Applied Research and Assessment in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing at the University of Roehampton, UK. Professor Essau was born and raised in the tropical jungle of Borneo Island. She received her early education in Sarawak before doing her Highschool Diploma at Hillcrest Highschool in Thunder Bay, Canada. She obtained her undergraduate degrees from Lakehead University (Canada), her PhD from the University of Konstanz (Germany), and her “Habilitation” in Psychology (qualification for tenure-track professorships in Germany) from the University of Bremen (Germany). She is the first Iban woman to have received a PhD. Her research has focused on understanding the interacting factors that can lead young people to have mental health problems and using this research to (a) enhance the assessment of psychopathology and (b) design more effective interventions to prevent and treat such problems. She is author of 220 articles, and is the author/editor of 20 books in the area of youth mental health. She is also co-author of “Super Skills for Life”, a transdiagnostic program for the prevention of emotional problems in young people (https://www.superskillsforlife.com/). Cecilia is Fellow of The British Psychological Society and Fellow of The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She is a recipient of the Norman Munn Distinguished Visiting Scholar from Flinders University (Australia), Distinguished Visiting Professorship from De La Salle University (Philippines), and the Florey Medical Research Foundation Mental Health Visiting Professorship from the University of Adelaide (Australia). Cecilia is founder of the annual International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - platform for disseminating new research and best practice and is at the forefront of promoting research to improving practice in young people’s health. https://youth-health.info/