DrEva Havelka

Dr. Eva Maria Havelka is an MRC-funded Clinical Research Training Fellow and PhD candidate in the Division of Psychiatry. She is studying multimodal neuroimaging, neurocognitive and computational methods, with the aim of improving our understanding of brain processes underpinning addictions. Insights into these neural correlates help advance the development of targeted neuromodulatory interventions, including noninvasive brain stimulation and psychedelic drugs. Eva is leading the first task-based fMRI study evaluating neural and behavioural correlates of reward and emotion in buprenorphine-maintained opioid dependent people. Her research is supervised by Professor Anne Lingford-Hughes, Dr Louise Paterson and Dr Danielle Kurtin. Professors Quentin Huys (UCL) and Rebecca Elliott (Manchester University) are collaborators on Eva’s Fellowship, lending their expertise in computational psychiatry and neurocognitive testing, respectively.

Eva completed her medical degree at Keele University School of Medicine (MBChB Hons), and holds an intercalated BSc in Global Health from Imperial College. After working as a research assistant to Professor Marsden and Dr Metrebian at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, she completed Foundation Training in London and Kent. In parallel, she was a research collaborator to Dr Lorenzo Leggio, National Institute on Drug Abuse. Eva pursued her psychiatry residency at the Psychiatric University Hospital of Zürich, Switzerland. She continues to study the impacts of Züri Can, a regulated framework for cannabis legalisation, with Professor Marcus Herdener’s lab.

Eva enjoys communicating science in medical education, university teaching, and public settings. Her polyglotism allows for culturally sensitive and impactful exchanges with Czech, Slovak, German, Spanish, French, and English speakers.