Dr Sunjai Gupta is currently a Deputy Director and Head of Public Health Strategy and Health Related Behaviour within the Health Improvement and Protection Directorate, of the Department of Health, England. After joining the Department he initiated a project on Behavioural Epidemiology and more recently he gave evidence to the House of Lords’ Inquiry into Behaviour Change.

Before joining the Department he completed a first class honours degree in Basic Medical Sciences with Psychology and then a PhD in Psychology from the University of London, before completing his medical course at St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School. He then trained in Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital /Institute of Psychiatry. This included an MRC Training Fellowship in Health Services Research as part of which he completed a Diploma in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and spent time working within the Division of Mental Health of the World Health Organisation in Geneva. He was also awarded the 1991 Annett Award of the Schizophrenia Association of Great Britain for research into geographical variations in schizophrenia.

He was appointed OBE in June 2004 for services to the Department of Health, elected to membership of the Faculty of Public Health by distinction in June 2005, and admitted as a Fellow in September 2006.

He is also an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist and a part-time, practising clinician at the Maudsley Hospital.