Thara Rangaswamy is a psychiatrist, co- founder and director of a non- profit organisation in Chennai, India called the Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF). SCARF is a collaborating centre of the WHO for mental health research and training. Thara has been associated closely with WHO and NIMH. She has been responsible for influencing policy related to mental disability in India and pioneered the use of mobile tele-psychiatry in rural south India. She has also forged research links with leading academic centers in the world, is PI of many research projects, has over 130 research publications and has used research to improve patient care in her centre.