The SSA is pleased to announce that Dr Anya Topiwala has been awarded this year’s Impact Prize and Dr Emmert Roberts has won the Fred Yates Prize for Early Career Researchers.
Dr Anya Topiwala is a clinician scientist who studied medicine at the University of Oxford and subsequently trained in old age psychiatry. She completed a DPhil in Psychiatry, investigating how alcohol affects brain health. Supported by two Wellcome fellowships, including her current work on alcohol-related dementia, she now leads a research group at Oxford’s Big Data Institute – bridging clinical insight and data science. Her team examines risk and resilience factors for later-life cognitive and psychiatric disorders, integrating large-scale epidemiology, population neuroimaging, and causal inference to understand ageing brain health and inform prevention strategies.
The judging panel commended Anya’s work with the brain injury charity Headway to translate research findings into practical, public-facing advice. The panel also acknowledged her commitment to supporting and developing human capital in the field, for example through mentoring and supervising students and early career researchers, and through co-production with people with lived experience of addiction.
Dr Emmert Roberts is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Addiction Psychiatry at King’s College London and a Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist at the South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He is currently a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Advanced Fellow and a Commonwealth Fund Senior Harkness Fellow, exploring ways to reduce harm due to drug and alcohol use by harnessing administrative data.
The judging panel noted that Emmert’s record of collaborations and involvement in national guideline development have shown a clear pathway from research to policy impact, and his public engagement activities, such as podcast appearances, have demonstrated commitment to wider societal benefit. The panel also praised Emmert’s trajectory as an early career researcher, saying that his career to date has been marked by significant methodological innovation and meaningful contributions to addiction research.
Both Anya and Emmert have been invited to present at the Annual Conference in Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 and 13 November 2026. Early-bird tickets are on sale until 24 September 2026, offering discounts of up to £100. If you are a student or from a third-sector organisation, you could be eligible for support towards the cost of the ticket, travel, and accommodation. Book your place or read our guide to attending.
