New Director and Deputy Director for King's Clinical Academic Training Office

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Frances Williams, Professor of Genomic Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist as the new Director of King's Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO) and Dr Rina Dutta, Reader in Suicidology and Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist, who has been appointed as the Deputy Director of KCATO.

The newly established King's Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO) will provide a centralised pan-professional liaison and clinical academic training hub and act as a single point of contact for advice, best practice and information on academic careers, recruitment, training and development for all health professionals across all stages of research training. Professor Williams and Dr Dutta are bringing significant experience and professional expertise to the KCATO that will play a crucial role in coordinating and expanding the support offered to health researchers at King's.

I am delighted that Professor Frances Williams (Director) and Dr Rina Dutta (Deputy Director), have agreed to provide leadership as we launch King's Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO). Frances and Rina have substantial experience of and commitment to supporting the training of scholars across the health professions. We very much look forward to working with the leadership team as they shape the opportunity further.– Professor Richard Trembath, Senior Vice President, Health & Life Sciences, King's College London and Executive Director, King's Health Partners

Previously a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellow, Professor Williams is now running her own group within the Dept of Twin Research, to study the 'omic epidemiology of common complex traits related to chronic pain. Her focus is on the chronic pain syndromes including low back pain and intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD). This ties in well with her clinical interests of back and musculoskeletal pain and she provides clinics in general rheumatology, metabolic bone disease and Musicians' musculoskeletal problems.

I am delighted to have been appointed to this new role. It represents a significant advance in King's support for professional training across healthcare researchers. We want to emphasise that this is open to all and we will endeavour to make the training more joined up, across the various stages of career development and across all healthcare faculties.– Professor Frances Williams, Director of King's Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO)

Dr Dutta is a Clinician Scientist Fellow of the Health Foundation in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences and has recently been appointed as an Emerging Research Leader of the Academy of Medical Sciences, to represent the voice of medical scientist leaders of the future. She has been Training and Capacity Development lead of the NIHR Maudsley BRC since 2020. Dr Dutta uses epidemiological methods and innovative data science approaches to study mental and physical health in Electronic Health Records, leading her team to automate the identification of suicidality and validating algorithms across a range of clinical contexts. She is rapidly developing an emerging tranche of research on mental health outcomes, using social media and smartphone data. Clinically she leads a clinic for Healthcare Professionals in the National Affective Disorders service at SLaM.

I am committed to developing a co-ordinated strategy for pan-professional clinical academic training at King's and fostering a vibrant world-leading clinical academic community. It is a privilege to have been appointed to the senior leadership team of KCATO as we require a broad perspective across the Health Faculties, to enable synchronisation of programmes, to improve efficiency, and to effect changes in clinical academic training culture.– Dr Rina Dutta, Deputy Director of King's Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO)