Siobhan O'Neill

Siobhan O’Neill is a Professor of Mental Health Sciences at Ulster University. Prior to joining Ulster University in 2000, Siobhan completed a degree in Psychology at the Queen's University of Belfast and a Masters in Health Psychology at NUI Galway. She also worked as a Public Health Researcher, conducting evaluations of health services and users’ experience of care. In 2008 Siobhan coordinated the largest ever study of mental health in Northern Ireland, the NI Research and Development Office funded, NI Study of Health and Stress. This study revealed the high proportions of the NI population who had unmet mental health needs and the extent of mental illness associated with the NI conflict. Siobhan is also a coordinator of the NI suicide study, a study of the characteristics of over 1600 suicides and undetermined deaths. She is a member of the World Mental Health Survey Consortium, a Director of Youthlife and the Irish Association of Suicidology and an advisor to several suicide prevention and mental health organisations who provide services and interventions for mental health and suicide prevention. She sits on national and international research committees. She has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including several ground breaking studies of mental health and suicidal behaviour in Northern Ireland. Her current research programmes focus on maternal mental health, mental health in school children, and the transgenerational transmission of Troubles related trauma. She is currently involved in studies of mental health in students, the biological basis of mental illness and suicidal behaviour, and suicide crisis line caller behaviour and outcomes.
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