Leo Chen is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist with extensive experience across clinical practice, research and medical education. He leads the Brain Stimulation Lab and the Therapeutic Trials Team at the Department of Psychiatry, School of Translational Medicine, Monash University. As the Director of Psychiatry Training at Alfred Health, he plays a leadership and workforce management role in the training and education of 60+ medical doctors in the specialty of psychiatry.  

Research Track Record and Support: Leo Chen is an investigator on numerous clinical trials evaluating brain stimulation techniques and pharmaceuticals therapies, including as Site PI in several multi-national Phase II psychopharmacology trials. He designed and led a large (n=300), investigator-initiated, multi-site trial across three Australian states and demonstrated the efficacy and safety of an accelerated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treatment protocol for depression that was more efficient than existing protocols. In the last 5 years, CID Chen has been awarded $3.5m+ in research funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, philanthropic and institutional sources.

Research Translation and Impact: Leo Chen has been invited to present his research at numerous international conferences. He was invited to lead an expert consensus article on accelerated TMS for the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. He has reviewed for the journals: the American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, Brain Stimulation, Cerebral Cortex and Frontiers in Psychiatry. Locally, he was an author on the RANZCP’s 2018 Professional Practice Guideline (PPG16) and Position Statement (PS79) on TMS. He serves on the Board of Directors and is Co-Chair of the Training Committee at Clinical TMS Society.