About Me

Thank you for taking the time to find out a bit more about me, I hope this website is a useful resource, please do let me know if anything is missing. 

My academic career began with an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences (Experimental Psychology) at the University of Cambridge. This is where I first encountered research into affective experience through an undergraduate placement in the summer of my second year and then my final year dissertation project with Professor Barney Dunn. I went on to a 1+3 PhD studentship funded by the Medical Research Council at the IoPPN, KCL, supervised by Dr Matteo Cella & Professor Til Wykes. My PhD work took my experience of affective research in depression and applied this to people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I used experience sampling methodology, with pager devices, to collect data in everyday life and saw the power of this approach when compared to a novel lab-based task I had developed. 
 
I then completed the clinical psychology doctorate, a three year clinical training with a doctoral thesis component. I conducted applied research taking learning from work on autobiographical memory in depression and demonstrated the feasibility of using this approach with people with psychosis. Following my qualification as a clinical psychologist I worked in NHS services (community and inpatient). 

Then it was back to research! Still in the field of psychosis, and this time as AVATAR2 trial coordinator, responsible for managing a multi-site randomised controlled trial of AVATAR therapy. This is a novel intervention which harnesses digital avatars to represent a person's distressing voice-hearing experiences and enable them to be brought directly into the therapy room. This experience taught me a lot about people management and supervision, effective team-working, project management and the research pipeline from mechanisms to intervention development and testing. 

And that brings us to now, I have been awarded a Wellcome Early Career Award fellowship to focus on the mechanisms that underlie anhedonia, or loss of pleasure, across diagnoses and using digital methods. As a researcher I value open science principles, and am open to collaboration. I have seen the incredible value of lived experience involvement in research and this will be at the core of my research programme. My fellowship allows me to continue clinical work in the NHS, which I am currently doing in assertive outreach and community rehabilitation teams.  

I am learning how to juggle a clinical academic career with two babies who decided to come at the same time, my twins were born in March 2022. This dictates a lot of my time outside work in glorious, amazing and frustrating ways that are constantly changing. I also enjoy running (Parkrun enthusiast!) and reading.