School of Psychology

I studied for my PhD on the neuropsychology of schizophrenia under the supervision of Sir (Prof) Robin Murray at the Institute of Psychiatry, King College London. For my post-doctoral work I continued to work with Professor Murray on a cohort study investigating the long-term consequences of very preterm birth and developed a specialist interest in developmental neuropsychology.  I returned to Northern Ireland in 1999 and set up the Northern Ireland First Episode Psychosis Outcome Study; a longitudinal study into the psychological, biological and social predictors of psychosis. From 2004 I spent four years at the University of Manchester where I furthered my interest in neurodevelopmental predictors of psychosis. There I had the opportunity to work with leading experts in the field of neuroimaging and apply techniques such as probabilistic tractography to the study of normal and atypical adolescent brain development.  In 2008 I returned to Northern Ireland and worked at Magee College, UU. There I recently set up the North West Adolescent Developmental Study with a focus on understanding psychological predictors of self-harm and related disorders in young people.  At this time I also developed an interest in young people’s understanding of severe mental illness, as an important step in developing anti-stigma programmes for delivery in schools.  I took up the post of Senior Lecturer at QUB in 2012.