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Professor Alison Yung

Professor Alison Yung, MD, MBBS, MPM, FRANZCP, Grad Dip Epidem, is a Professor and Consultant Psychiatrist at Orygen Youth Health Research Centre and the Centre for Youth Mental Health at The University of Melbourne. She has been involved in early psychosis, in both clinical and research fields, since 1993 when she was a Senior Psychiatric Registrar at the then newly-founded Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC) in Melbourne, Australia. In 1994, she established the Personal Assessment and Crisis Evaluation (PACE) Clinic, a clinical and research centre that manages young people at incipient risk of developing psychosis, that is, those thought to be in the initial prodromal phase before a first psychotic episode. This was the first clinic of its type in the world. Research conducted within PACE is now being adapted and expanded upon internationally. In recent years Prof Yung’s research career has continued to expand to include studies of psychotic symptoms in non-psychotic populations, including the general community, through her “Grey Zone” research program. Her highly cited work is translated into clinical practice.

Prof Yung is an Executive Board member of the International Early Psychosis Association, and Associate Editor of the journals Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry and Early Intervention in Psychiatry, and a member of the Editorial Board of Clinical Schizophrenia and Related Psychoses. Together with colleagues, she currently holds over $20 million in grant funding, including being a Chief Investigator on a NHMRC Program Grant and on a NHMRC Centre for Clinical and Research Excellence grant. She was awarded a NARSAD Independent Investigator Award in 2003, and an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship in 2008. She has over 100 publications mainly related to first episode and PACE research. She also holds two Rotary grants in the area of prevention of youth suicide. She is passionate about improving services and outcomes for young people with mental health problems.

Research Interests: 

Risk factors for psychosis, ultra high risk research, first-episode psychosis, schizophrenia, psychopathology, evidence based interventions in mental illness, knowledge translation.