Livia De Picker

Livia De Picker MD PhD graduated with a summa cum laude medical degree at the University of Antwerp, Belgium in 2012, after which she simultaneously started her PhD and residency training program to become a psychiatrist. In 2013, she joined the board of the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees (EFPT), She led the organization as president in 2015-2016, during which time she hosted the 24th annual European Forum of Psychiatric Trainees in her home town of Antwerp. During her training, she got the opportunity to work as visiting scientist at the University of Southampton (UK) and psychiatric resident at the University Medical Center Leiden (NL). She also won the first prize at the Antwerp Doctoral School Science Communication Contest. After graduating as a psychiatrist in 2019, and defending her PhD thesis in 2020, Livia is now working at the University Psychiatric Hospital Duffel (Belgium) as postdoctoral researcher and medical director of two clinical units of dialectical behaviour therapy for patients with emotion regulation disorders.

Her work revolves at the interface of research, clinical care, and health care policy – focusing on synergies between these three domains and strategies for translational implementation of evidence-based policy. Livia has become an influential early career clinician-scientist who has been constantly promoting the field of biological psychiatry both in Belgium and Europe. She is currently the president of the Belgian College for Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry (BCNBP), and a board member of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA). Within ECNP, she has fostered educational opportunities for early career researchers through her involvement in the Early Career Advisory Panel (2015-2019), Educational Committee (2017-2019), Abstract & Poster Committee (2019-2022) and Workshop Committee (2023-ongoing). Currently she is also co-chair of the ECNP Immuno-NeuroPsychiatry Network and is leading international collaborative research projects on COVID-19 and mental illness.