Prof Sir Simon Wessely KBE is Professor and Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine and Vice Dean for Academic Psychiatry at King’s College London. He is currently President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is a clinical liaison psychiatrist with a particular interest in chronic fatigue syndrome and in military health. He is a civilian consultant advisor in Psychiatry to the British Army and a trustee of Combat Stress, the principal UK charity for veterans with mental health problems. Prof Wessely is also a foundation senior investigator of the National Institute for Health Research, and fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2012 he was awarded the first Nature

John Maddox Prize for Standing Up for Science, and was appointed Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2013. Professor Wessely has more than 750 original academic publications and has co-authored books on chronic fatigue syndrome, the history of military psychiatry, and randomised controlled trials. He is active in public engagement activities, speaking regularly on radio and TV and writing columns for national newspapers in the UK.