NMI Summit 2025 Speaker

Dr. Joseph Firth, PhD

Dr. Joseph Firth is a UKRI Fellow at the University of Manchester, with a PhD (Medicine) from The University of Manchester. Internationally recognized as one of the most highly-cited scientists in Digital Medicine, Lifestyle Psychiatry and Mental Health, he was awarded the USERN Laureate in Social Sciences in 2022 and named Research.com’s #1 “Rising Star” in 2023. A five-time recipient of the Clarivate™ Highly Cited Researcher award (2020–2024), he has published over 300 articles with more than 45,000 citations (h-index = 90), including first-author papers in top journals like The BMJ and The Lancet Psychiatry. His current research leverages digital technologies and lifestyle medicine to improve outcomes for people with mental illness, and he is currently leading a multi-million £ UKRI-funded project around the implementation of digital lifestyle interventions into youth mental healthcare. Dr. Firth also leads the Lancet Commission on Physical Health in Mental Illness, and acts as expert advisor for the World Health Organization’s “Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour”. He has also engaged extensively with traditional and online media, with his publications around lifestyle and nutritional approaches to mental illness receiving coverage from >700 news outlets (including Times, Forbes, CNN, etc.) along with televised interviews on Sky News and BBC television.