Prof Mike Kyrios
Emeritus Prof Mike Kyrios
SENIOR ASSOCIATE
Emeritus Professor Mike Kyrios is a leading academic and clinical psychologist specialising in mental health and wellbeing. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at Flinders University, where he was previously Vice President and Executive Dean in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, as well as instigator and inaugural Director of the Órama Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing. He holds honorary positions at various other universities where he has worked previously. He was Director of the Research School of Psychology at the Australian National University, Director of mental health research centres (now amalgamated into the Centre for Mental Health and Brain Sciences) at Swinburne University of Technology, director of the postgraduate professional psychology programs at the University of Melbourne, and Research Fellow at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI).
Mike specialises in the study and management of Obsessive-Compulsive (OCD), Anxiety and Mood disorders and behavioural addictions, and has leading expertise in wellbeing, psychological treatments, including those that are delivered digitally, and psychological aspects of medical illnesses such as diabetes. Notably, he has led the development of effective treatments for OCD and compulsive hoarding, inclusive of online interventions.
While maintaining clinical roles throughout his career (e.g., Royal Melbourne Hospital, Albert Road Clinic, private practice), in later years, Mike worked mostly within university settings in teaching, research, and administrative roles. His university administrative roles have included research centre director, head of school, and senior university executive. Mike has worked with government departments, industry partners, philanthropic bodies, and mental health consumer groups. He has set up major mental health and wellbeing research units and centres at universities throughout his career.
Mike has been associated with over $34 million in research funding as a primary investigator and has over 180 publications, including a Cambridge University Press edited book on the self in psychological disorders and a recent Nature Human Behaviour paper. According to ScholarGPS, he is amongst the top 0.5% scholars in the world in the area of OCD, where he is 40th globally, and in the area of Anxiety. He has undertaken editorial responsibilities for leading journals, including Behaviour Therapy, Frontiers in Psychiatry, Frontiers in Psychology, Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, PLOS ONE, and the International Journal of Psychology. He has sat on review panels for national granting bodies (National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Futures Fund, Million Minds initiative) and has also reviewed for international research funders. Mike has sat on multiple local, national and international conference committees and was Scientific Chair for the 2010 International Congress of Applied Psychology and the 2016 World Congress of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Throughout his professional life, he has supervised and mentored multiple leading researchers, academics and clinicians.
Throughout his career, he has been a leader within the Psychology profession in Australia. He received the 2013 Ian M Campbell Memorial Prize in Clinical Psychology from the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and the 2011 Presidential Citation for Excellence from the American Psychological Association’s Society for General Psychology. He is a former President of the APS, former National Chair of the APS College of Clinical Psychologists, and currently sits on the Orygen Youth Mental Health Research Committee. He was elected a Fellow of the APS in 2007 and an Inaugural Fellow of the Australian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapy in 2016.
Although recently retired from a full-time academic position, he is currently involved in transnational education and academic quality initiatives. He is currently Vice President (Quality and Compliance) for the Australian Education Management Group, chairing their Group Academic Senate. He chairs the Academic Board of the Australian Institute for Future Education. He also sits on the academic board of the Cairmillar Institute. He continues to undertake research and publish in the areas of mental health and wellbeing.