Dr. Margarita Panayiotou is a Lecturer in Educational Psychology at the Manchester Institute of Education (University of Manchester), specializing in adolescent mental health, psychometric analyses, and social media impacts. She has led multiple large-scale school-based mental health intervention projects including the HeadStart evaluation (2016–2023) and the Good Behaviour Game (2017–2020). Her methodological expertise includes structural equation modeling (SEM), Monte Carlo simulations, and network analysis. She founded the MIE SEM group in 2018 to promote collaborative research in advanced quantitative methods. Her academic journey includes a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Edinburgh (2015) and an MA in Psychology from the University of Cyprus (2011). Her research focuses on refining mental health measurement tools, such as the WHOQOL-BREF, and evaluating intervention efficacy through advanced statistical techniques like complier average causal effect (CACE) estimation. Key Projects: HeadStart, Good Behaviour Game, INSPIRE trial, AWARE trial Methodologies: SEM, Monte Carlo simulations, latent class analysis, panel networks SDG Contributions: Education (Goal 4), Good Health (Goal 3) Her recent work highlights the nuanced relationship between social media usage and adolescent mental health, emphasizing the need for context-aware measurement frameworks. Awards include the 2020 RSSG Excellence Award (Highly Commended) and 2019 Exceptional Performance Reward.







