Megan Kirk Chang

Megan Kirk Chang is a Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. Megan holds a PhD in Kinesiology and Health Sciences and an Advanced Doctoral Diploma in Health Psychology from York University, Toronto, Canada. She has held a Postdoctoral Associate position at the Yale School of Medicine. With two decades of experience in academic and healthcare settings (e.g., CAMH, Toronto General Hospital) across Canada, the USA, and now the UK, Megan excels in leading interdisciplinary research involving complex multi-site, NIH-registered health behaviour trials for adults with multiple long-term conditions, particularly exploring the combined effects of diet, exercise, mindfulness, yoga, and sleep on objective blood biomarkers, and mental and physical health outcomes. 

As a Senior Researcher on the Oxford Health BRC Preventing Multiple Morbidities theme, Megan works collaboratively across the Departments of Primary Care and Psychiatry leading a subtheme focused on developing metabolic interventions (e.g., nutritional ketosis, exercise, sleep) for adults with mental illness to reduce non-communicable disease risk factors. This includes managing a large project portfolio, developing effective multidisciplinary collaborations, and overseeing BRC multi-site operations. Megan has successfully designed and executed complex clinical trials integrating explanatory psychobiological mechanistic measures of gut-microbiome, morning cortisol, pupil reactivity and heart-rate-variability (HRV) self-monitoring into existing protocols including the following:

For collaborations, please contact Megan with your CV and a proposed project.

Research Interests:

• Multi-domain metabolic psychiatry clinical trials for adults with serious mental illnesses
• Individual-Level behavioural interventions (stand-alone and multi-component) 
• Physical activity, exercise, movement, yoga, mindfulness, breath, diet, sleep intervention design
• Digital health and wearable technology 
• Psychophysiology measurement of autonomic nervous system function, emotion dysregulation
• Adherence and motivation
• Advanced multi-level modelling for clinical trials
• Systematic reviews and meta-analysis, meta-regression, network meta-analysis

Beyond academia, Megan leads the “CuppaCoach” sessions worldwide to offer mentorship and professional development for early career researchers and undergraduate/graduate students in grant application revisions, interview preparation, and navigating challenging career decisions. She is also a College Advisor to eight graduate students at Kellogg College and values supporting a positive culture in academia.

As a certified mindfulness instructor with a large global following on the Insight Timer app, you can follow Megan and access her free guided meditations and 15-day self-guided course, "The Wisdom of Our Wounds: Healing from Trauma" that currently has over 27 000 students across the world!