The Research Centre of the German Foundation for Depression and Suicide Prevention is an independent, patient-centred research institution dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge on depressive disorders and improving their prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
The Centre focuses on generating high-quality, translational evidence to support better mental health care in real-world clinical settings, while maintaining complete independence from pharmaceutical industry funding. Established in 2014, the Research Centre has been academically affiliated since 2019 with the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Through interdisciplinary and impact-oriented research, the Centre aims to close the gap between scientific evidence and clinical practice, promoting more effective, accessible, and sustainable care for people affected by depression.
Project Staff
Dr Hanna Reich
Group leader
Dr. Hanna Reich is a clinical psychologist and licensed cognitive behavioural psychotherapist. She is Senior Scientific Coordinator at the Research Centre of the German Foundation for Depression and Suicide Prevention, affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy at Goethe University Frankfurt.
Her research focuses on digital mental health, healthcare utilisation, and the reduction of treatment gaps in depression care, with a particular emphasis on improving access to evidence-based interventions for underserved and high-risk populations.
Dr. Reich contributes to national and international research collaborations in personalised and precision mental health, occupational mental health, and implementation-oriented depression research. Her work is supported by major public funding organisations, including the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the European Union, the Movember Foundation, and the German Federal Ministry of Defence.
Dr. Milica Petrovic
Sub-Investigator
Dr. Milica Petrovic is a psychologist and a Scientific Coordinator at the Research Center of the German Foundation for Depression and Suicide Prevention, affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at Goethe University Frankfurt. She obtained her PhD in General Psychology in 2022 from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan as part of a Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network.
Her research focuses on depression and digital mental health, with a particular emphasis on identifying behavioral and technology-derived markers of mental health. She has extensive experience in the design and implementation of clinical and observational studies, including longitudinal research and studies involving vulnerable populations. Her work integrates behavioral, clinical, and digital data to better understand mental health trajectories, underlying mechanisms, and treatment response.
Dr. Petrovic has contributed to multiple international research projects, including Horizon 2020, Erasmus+ and DAAD initiatives. She serves as a sub-investigator for the German team in the MENTBEST project, contributing to the MENTINA multicenter clinical trial evaluating a digital intervention for the self-management of depressive symptoms.
Dr Nihidha Srinivassin
Postdoctoral Researcher
Nihidha Srinivassin is a psychologist and researcher with an MSc and PhD in Psychology. Since March 2025, she has been working at the German Depression Foundation as a Research Associate. In the MENTBEST Project, she serves as Non-Medical Study Staff, focusing on participant recruitment and supporting a variety of study related activities.
Elena Shakhova
Predoctoral Researcher
Elena Shakhova, MSc, is a research assistant at the Research Center of the German Foundation for Depression and Suicide Prevention. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at Amsterdam University College in 2020 and obtained her Master of Science in Psychology from Regent’s University London in 2022, with a focus on clinical psychology and research methods.
Since 2023, she has been working on research projects at the Foundation, including data preparation and analysis within the German Armed Forces project as well as activities in the MENTBEST project. In parallel, she is pursuing her PhD at Goethe University Frankfurt, where her research focuses on depression and physical activity using machine learning approaches. Her doctoral work is supported by a scholarship from the Claussen-Simon Foundation.
Her work contributes to the application of data-driven methods in mental health research, with a particular interest in understanding behavioural patterns and their relevance for depression.
Johannes Leimhofer
Data scientist
Johannes Leimhofer is a computer scientist with more than 10 years of professional experience in software development, data engineering, and data science. He is currently working as a data scientist for the foundation and pursuing his PhD, which focuses on deriving depression indicators based on smartphone data.
In recent years, he has primarily developed advanced data analyses and machine learning models for the chemical process industry. He now applies the skills he acquired there to depression research in a highly beneficial way.
At the foundation, he works as a data scientist in the joint project Mondy and in the EU project MENTBEST.
Dr. Caroline Allenhof
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Caroline Allenhof is a psychologist and researcher at the German Foundation for Depression and Suicide Prevention, where she has been working for over eight years. She completed her PhD on the efficacy, usage, and potential negative effects of digital interventions for patients with depression, with a particular focus on their safe and effective implementation in clinical practice.
Her recent work has focused on national and international projects aimed at the implementation and further development of the iFightDepression tool, a guided digital intervention designed to support the treatment of depression. Her research interests lie in optimizing both the content and the delivery of digital interventions to ensure they are effective, user-friendly, and accessible to a broad range of individuals.
Within the MENTBEST project, Dr. Allenhof contributes to the development of the mobile application for MENTINA clinical trial, supporting efforts to create scalable and evidence-based digital solutions for mental health care.