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 health 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 psychobiological mechanistic measures of gut-microbiome, morning cortisol, pupil reactivity and heart-rate-variability (HRV) self-monitoring into existing protocols including the following:

Current Projects:

• DIME Trial: Ketogenic Diet for Treatment Resistant Depression
• PREV-D Research Programme: Lifestyle Patterns of Sleep, Diet, Exercise, and Mental Health in Adults at Risk of Dementia
• NIHR Team Science: Development of a Precision Medicine Tool to Measure Quality of Life in Adults with Multiple Long-Term Conditions
• Diet & Cognition Meta-Regression

International Projects:

• AINGEL Project: Using artificial intelligence to learn predictors of success in primary care management plans for adults with CVD and diabetes [University of Queensland, AUSTRALIA]
• PADES Trial: Prevention of Attrition in Doctoral Education Students: A Randomised Controlled Trial to reduce Academic Stress and Increase Productivity [York University, CANADA and UC San Diego, USA]

For DPhil inquiries, 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 
• Autonomic nervous system function, emotion dysregulation
• Measurement of emotion regulation
• Behavioural Medicine and behaviour change theory
• Mixed-methods research design
• Advanced multi-level modelling for clinical trials
• Systematic reviews and meta-analysis, meta-regression, network meta-analysis

Beyond academia, Megan leads the “CuppaCoach” sessions to offer mentorship and professional development for Oxford EMCRs 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 23 500 students across the world!