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 held a Postdoctoral Associate position at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in the Yale School of Medicine. With two decades of experience in academia and healthcare settings (e.g., CAMH, Toronto General Hospital) in Canada, the USA, and now the UK, Megan excels in leading complex multi-site, multidisciplinary NIH-registered clinical trials utilising mobile health applications and wearable technology to optimize clinician and patient outcomes. Her research interests include enhancing mental and physical health through digital health and remote self-monitoring, identifying psychophysiological biomarkers, and evaluating treatment effects via autonomic nervous system function.

As a Senior Researcher on the Oxford Health BRC Preventing Multiple Morbidities theme, Megan leads a subtheme focused on developing behaviour change interventions 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 mechanistic measures of gut-microbiome, morning cortisol, and heart-rate-variability (HRV) self-monitoring into existing protocols. 

Beyond academia, Megan leads the “CuppaCoach” sessions to offer mentorship and professional development for EMCRs in grant application revisions, interview preparation, and navigating challenging career decisions.

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 18 000 students across the world!