Associate Professor (A/Prof) Tamsyn Van Rheenen is Head of the Mood-Psychosis Spectrum Group at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, University of Melbourne, Australia.
A/Prof Van Rheenen completed her PhD at Swinburne University in 2014. She then moved to the University of Melbourne in 2015 to take up a prestigious NHMRC Early Career Fellowship and further develop her research program, which aims to characterize cognitive impairments in severe psychiatric disorders and understand the mechanisms behind them.
Despite several career interruptions, A/Prof Van Rheenen has published over 100 papers and received a number of prestigious international, national and local awards in recognition of her research excellence. These awards include a Gerald Klerman Young Investigator Award from the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, a Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, and a Paul Bourke Medal from the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.
Research
Current first-line treatments for bipolar disorder targets its mood and psychotic symptoms, but do not address the cognitive problems that substantially impact the ability to manage daily activities and function in educational, employment, and social settings. A/Prof Van Rheenen’s research program will contribute new knowledge to facilitate the development of intervention strategies targeted explicitly at this symptom dimension.
With the support of the Al and Val Rosenstrauss Fellowship, A/Prof Van Rheenen will map key risk and protective factors to cognitive traits from a trajectory-based perspective that accounts for different developmental windows in the life course of bipolar disorder for the first time. The major advances to be delivered by this research are 1) identification of new clinical, psychological, and neurobiological mechanisms and modifiers of cognitive symptoms in bipolar disorder, and 2) insights into their nature and timing that can be translated into treatment strategies informed by what should be targeted and when.