Dr Mariana Pinto da Costa (MD, MSc) is a portuguese psychiatrist. She is a Doctoral research fellow at the Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry (WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Services Development and NIHR Global Health Group) at Queen Mary University of London, and a Lecturer at the Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar Institute at the University of Porto.
She is enthusiastic in making the most of technology to connect people. In her current research, she has been exploring social relationships between people with psychosis and volunteers in 3 European countries and through different formats (face-to-face or digitally).
During her medical studies in the University of Porto she studied abroad for two years (in Italy and Poland), and won a prize from the European Commission “Erasmus Student 2 million - Erasmus, Success Stories”. She kept passionate about mobility and collaborated with the European Commission writing the Erasmus+ Generation Declaration, which she presented at the European Parliament about the future of this program.
She is past president of the European Federation of Psychiatric trainees (EFPT), and has been the Principal Investigator and study manager of the EFPT Brain Drain Study, researching mobility experiences of psychiatric trainees in 33 European countries.
She also has clinical and research experience in Africa, where she was screening alcohol, smoking and other substances involvement, in primary and mental health care users in Luanda, while studying for the International Master on Mental Health Policy and Services at the New University of Lisbon supported by the WHO.
Presently she has several leadership roles, being the Chair of the Early Career Psychiatrists Section at the World Psychiatric Association, Co-Chair of the Early Career Psychiatrists Committee at the European Psychiatric Association, and the Vice-President of the Portuguese Association of Researchers and Students in the United Kingdom (PARSUK).