Paediatrician and UCL Professor of Integrated Community Child Health, Monica Lakhanpaul, is working across sectors to address inequalities and support healthier lives for all young people.
Monica Lakhanpaul has spent most of her career advocating for children, parents and carers, focused on addressing the inequalities that underpin poor health.
Born in Leeds, she studied medicine at University of Manchester before gaining her doctorate in Paediatrics and Child Health in 2003. She later held senior lecturer and consultant posts in Leicester before joining UCL in 2012.
On why she became a paediatrician, she says:
Children just fascinate me; they get ill quickly, they get better quickly, they’re full of questions, they’re inquisitive, they challenge you. And I really love that.
Alongside her roles as a Professor at the UCL Institute of Child Health and a consultant paediatrician in Nottingham, Monica holds several strategic positions at UCL, including Global Strategic Academic Advisor for India.
Her current projects include SPROCKET which uses innovative, co-designed methods to improve the delivery of services for children with complex health needs; PSP Refugee, a culturally-informed, parenting support programme to improve the safety, health and education of young refugees in temporary accommodation; and the One Home One Heritage project, which explores identity, belonging and home for children living in displaced communities.
Monica’s work is characterised by interdisciplinary and participatory approaches, combining citizen science, engineering and the creative arts with healthcare delivery and community engagement to support some of society’s most vulnerable. She works across India and the UK to bring lived experiences to the forefront of health and research, advocating for spaces of mutual learning, trust and respect. She also leads on several creative projects to share these stories, from zines to immersive theatre.
My work is about intersectionality. The beauty of UCL is that I've been given the freedom to drive my unusual pathway of work forward in the way that I want to. I've been given that flexibility and space to really be innovative.
She is proud of seeing her own children grow into “inquisitive, knowledgeable, kind young people that really match the values that I’ve tried to bring through my work.”
She remains committed to her mission to build healthier futures for all children and, despite the difficulties she sees every day, she also sees resilience and joy:
I want people to remember how exciting the world can be, and even when you have your low days there’s always a moment of happiness you can bring out of it.
