Chairman Medical Board

Institute of Mental Health

A/Prof Swapna Verma is a leading advocate for early intervention and youth mental health. As Chairman Medical Board at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), she drives clinical governance and innovative models of care. She is also Programme Director of CHAT (Community Health Assessment Team), a national youth mental health initiative recognised with the National Medical Excellence Team Award in 2022. A/Prof Verma has been instrumental in advancing early psychosis care, having co-developed the Early Psychosis Intervention Programme (EPIP), which garnered the WHO award for research in health promotion. Her work has redefined schizophrenia care and informed national strategies through extensive research funded by NMRC and international partners. She has published over 200 papers in prestigious journals such as Lancet and JAMA Psychiatry, and serves on national mental health committees. An educator at Duke-NUS and NUS, she also examines for national psychiatry board exams. She holds an MBBS and MD in Psychiatry from the University of Mumbai and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Her leadership bridges science, service, and compassion to advance mental healthcare in Singapore.