Plenary speakers 2026
We are proud to present the following plenary speakers for the NEDS Conference 2026 in Västerås, Sweden:
Claes Norring, PhD
Claes Norring, PhD, is a retired clinical psychologist and earlier Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. He has extensive experience in clinical research on eating disorders and has worked in areas including diagnosis, treatment development, and national quality monitoring. He has held key roles in the development of Swedish and Nordic network collaborations, as one of the founders of both SEDS (where he has served as chairman, secretary, and board member) and NEDS (as secretary and board member).
On a national level, he initiated and led the clinical research collaboration, SUFSA, comprising most Swedish eating disorder units, between 1993 and 2004. This project led to the establishment of Riksät, the national quality register for eating disorder treatment in 1998, for which he was a registry holder. He has published more than 100 scientific works, supervised five doctoral dissertations, and participated in countless conferences and seminars. He has also been a national representative in two EU-based projects, as well as the director of the National Competence Centre for Eating Disorders (NÄT).
Through his combined roles, he has helped build bridges between science, healthcare, and practical treatment to improve care quality and long-term follow-up for eating disorders.
David Clinton, PhD
David Clinton is Associate Professor of Medical Psychology at the Centre for Eating Disorders Innovation (CEDI), Karolinska Institutet. He is also a practising clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, and clinical supervisor.
Since the mid-1980s, he has been involved in a wide range of eating disorder research and has more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific works. He has supervised doctoral students, participated in international conferences, and acted as opponent or examiner for numerous PhD dissertations. From 1993 to 2004, he acted as research co-ordinator for the SUFSA project, and from 2006 to 2012, he was Associate Editor of the European Eating Disorders Review. He was one of the founders of Kunskapscentrum för Ätstörningar (KÄTS) and has been in charge of Karolinska Institutet’s 7.5 HP course on the background and treatment of eating disorders since 2002.
Together with Claes Norring he has authored and edited Ätstörningar: Bakgrund och aktuella behandlingsmetoder (Natur & Kultur, 2009). And together with Rasmus Isomaa he has authored and edited Förstå och bemöta ätstörningar (Studentlitteratur, 2022). From 2010 to 2019, he was board chairman of the Swedish patient advocacy group Frisk & Fri.
Keynote: The development of clinically oriented eating disorder research in Sweden and
The Nordics: networks, registries, and the challenges of collaboration
Claes Norring & David Clinton
Over the past three decades, Sweden and the Nordics have built a coherent, practice-oriented infrastructure for eating disorder research, driven by expanding collaboration among clinical services, academic institutions, national competence centres, and Nordic professional societies. From humble beginnings, Nordic cooperation in the field of eating disorders has become extensive.
In this presentation, we aim to provide a historical perspective on the development of networks, registries, and clinically oriented eating disorder research in the Nordic countries. Beginning in the late 1970s, we explore the achievements and disappointments of collaboration up to the present day. We conclude with reflections on the opportunities and challenges of developing meaningful partnerships between researchers and clinicians, as well as between our individual countries.
Professor Christina Wierenga
Christina Wierenga, PhD, FAED, is a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Diego, where she is a Professor of Psychiatry and the Director of Research at the UCSD Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research, the most extensive university-based eating disorders treatment program in the United States.
She is an expert in the neurobiology of eating disorders. Her research investigates cognitive, behavioural and brain mechanisms underlying eating disorder symptoms, utilising neurocognitive, neuroimaging and computational neuroscience approaches, to guide development of neurobiologically-informed treatments. This has led to the co-development of Temperament-Based Therapy with Support (TBT-S). She also leads a measurement-based care research program evaluating eating disorder treatment outcomes at a higher level of care.
Christina Wierenga is a Fellow of Division 40 (Neuropsychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA), Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders and member of the Eating Disorders Research Society. She serves on several international eating disorder research groups and advisory councils, including the ENIGMA Eating Disorders Working Group, the National Eating Disorders Association Research Advisory Council, and the Advisory Group for the Translation Stream of The Australian Eating Disorders Research and Translation Centre.
Keynote: Bridging the divide between research and practice: Lessons learned from measurement-based care
The integration of scientific research and clinical practice is increasingly viewed as essential to high-quality, evidence-based care. Yet this is often difficult to implement, especially in everyday clinical practice outside of a research environment. Measurement-based care may offer a practical solution to this challenge. Measurement-based care is an evidence-based clinical process that uses data from patient-reported outcomes to track progress, inform treatment decisions, and enhance patient engagement.
This keynote will outline how the measurement-based care model can be used to promote data-informed, patient-centred care for adolescents and adults with eating disorders across clinical settings and treatments. Examples will be discussed, including the implementation of a structured assessment protocol in a partial hospitalisation program for adolescent and adult eating disorders with data collected over 10 years and in over 1400 patients, and the development of a neuroscience-informed psychosocial intervention, Temperament-Based Therapy with Support (TBT-S). Lessons learned from both approaches will be shared, as well as knowledge gained about eating disorder phenomenology, clinical outcomes and predictors of treatment response. Factors that may serve as barriers and solutions to providing integrated care will also be considered.
Riccardo Dalle Grave, MD
Director of the Department of Eating and Weight Disorders at Villa Garda Hospital (Garda, VR, Italy). He developed an original treatment for adolescents with eating disorders based entirely on enhanced cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT-E), which is recommended by the NICE guidelines, and three intensive forms of CBT-E. Currently, the focus of his research is evaluating the CBT-E of adult and adolescent patients with eating disorders, both in outpatient and intensive settings. He is the director of the master’s course for health professionals on CBT-E for Eating Disorders and Obesity. He also teaches at several Italian psychotherapy schools and supervises teams in Europe, the US, Australia, and the Middle East. He is Associate Editor for the Journal of Eating Disorders, sits on the editorial boards of several other publications, and is editor of the CBT-E website. He is the author of 185 peer-reviewed articles, several book chapters, and books.
Keynote: Multistep Enhanced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Adolescents with Eating Disorders
Eating disorders in adolescents pose a major public health challenge, often leading to severe medical complications, psychosocial impairment, and increased mortality risk. Family-Based Treatment (FBT) remains the leading evidence-based intervention, but it is not effective or acceptable for all, leaving a pressing need for alternatives. Enhanced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT-E), originally developed for adults, has been adapted for adolescents by the Villa Garda team based on two key observations: they share the same core psychopathology as adults, and they can engage in individual therapy despite the egosyntonic nature of their disorder. The adolescent version also requires active parental involvement to support treatment.
However, standard outpatient CBT-E is often insufficient for severe or treatment-resistant cases. To address this gap, we developed Intensive CBT-E (ICBT-E), a structured, non-coercive program built through three phases: program design, refinement for intensive settings, and empirical validation. This work produced three coordinated levels of care: intensive outpatient, day-hospital, and inpatient rehabilitation. ICBT-E is distinguished by adherence to CBT-E principles, rejection of coercive practices, and adaptations for adolescent developmental needs.
Key features include assisted eating, structured team-patient review meetings, group interventions, and a multidisciplinary non-eclectic team fully trained in CBT-E. Ongoing refinement integrates clinical experience, patient feedback, and emerging research. In this talk, I will outline the multistep CBT-E model for adolescents, present available clinical data, and highlight new adaptations designed specifically for adolescents in different levels of care
Emma Forsén Mantilla, PhD
Emma Forsén Mantilla, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and study director at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences. Her work centres on eating disorders, compulsive exercise, eating disorders in sports, mental health, behaviour change and psychological treatment development. Over the past decade, she has focused on understanding compulsive exercise in eating disorders and on developing and evaluating both prevention initiatives and a systematic treatment intervention – the CompuLsive Exercise Activity TheraPy (LEAP) – targeting compulsive exercise in eating disorders. Emma has national and international research collaborations; she has served as Chair of the non-profit organisation Frisk & Fri and as an editor for the Journal of Eating Disorders.
In this keynote, Emma will give a brief update of what is currently known about compulsive exercise in eating disorders and bust some myths about the behaviour. She will then move on to more specifically describe the results and insights from the multi-centre randomised controlled clinical LEAP-trial completed in 2025, illustrating how ongoing research efforts are helping to inform and enhance clinical practice in the treatment of eating disorders.