Emeldah Precious

Emeldah Precious is a Clinical Psychologist, Behavioural & Implementation Researcher, and Gender & Social Development Specialist with a multidisciplinary background in Clinical Psychology and Gender & Development. Her work sits at the intersection of psychological practice, behavioural research, intervention implementation, gender, and evidence-informed approaches to improving wellbeing among young people and underserved populations.

Emeldah has experience in trauma-informed care, youth wellbeing, psychological interventions, research implementation, programme development, training, and psychosocial support. She is particularly interested in understanding how evidence-based interventions can be adapted to local contexts and effectively delivered in real-world, low-resource settings, while ensuring that the experiences and needs of the communities being served remain central to the process.

Her research interests span youth mental health, psychological interventions, trauma, gender, rare and chronic conditions, lived experience, and the implementation of evidence-based approaches. She is passionate about conducting research that moves beyond generating evidence to translating that evidence into practical and accessible interventions and services.

One of her most extensive research engagements has been a two-year cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) clinical trial examining the relationship between mental health and labour-market outcomes among young people in Kenya, conducted in collaboration with Oxford University, the University of Michigan, UCLA, and Busara Center for Behavioral Economics. Her involvement spanned multiple stages of the research process, from content adaptation and recontextualisation of the CBT intervention for the Kenyan context, development and refinement of intervention materials, and piloting, through to facilitator training and supervision, implementation of the clinical trial, and intervention fidelity monitoring. This experience has given her practical insight into the full journey of taking a psychological intervention from research design and contextualisation through to implementation and evaluation.

Her earlier research examined the prevalence of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder among women survivors of gender-based violence in selected rescue organisations in Nairobi, Kenya, reflecting her broader interest in trauma, gender, and psychological wellbeing among underserved populations. She has also worked on trauma-informed approaches to policing through consultancy with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and has collaborated with local, national, and international organisations on mental health, gender, youth, and psychosocial initiatives.

Emeldah's work has increasingly gained international recognition. In 2026, she was selected to represent her research on the psychological and mental health impact of living with rare and chronic conditions, with a particular focus on lived experience of neurofibromatosis, at the Global Mental Health Conference in Perth, Australia, under the Youth Presentation category. She will also present related research at the International Association for Youth Mental Health (IAYMH) Conference in Dublin, Ireland, contributing to international conversations around youth mental health, lived experience, and the psychological impact of rare and chronic conditions.

Beyond research and professional practice, Emeldah is passionate about mental health advocacy, lived-experience-informed research, and translating evidence into impact. She has led mental health awareness and psychosocial initiatives reaching more than 1,000 young people and has worked with diverse communities to promote psychological wellbeing, resilience, and access to appropriate support.

Her professional journey is also grounded in clinical practice. When she is not conducting research or working on research implementation, she enjoys providing individual and group psychotherapy, both virtually and face-to-face. She values the connection between research and practice — using evidence to strengthen therapeutic work while allowing experiences from clinical practice and communities to inform the questions that research seeks to answer.

Emeldah holds a master's degree in clinical psychology from United States International University–Africa (USIU-Africa) and a bachelor's degree in gender and development studies from Kenyatta University. She is registered with the Kenya Counsellors and Psychologists Board and is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA).

She is open to opportunities in behavioural and implementation research, research consultancy, program development, training, mental health and gender programming, evidence translation, and psychological services.

Email: [email protected]