"I am a postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Dr Deborah Wells in the field of animal behaviour and welfare.

I recently completed my PhD in the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast under the supervision of Dr Deborah Wells, Dr Grace Carroll and Professor Gareth Arnott. My PhD investigated the association between brain hemispheric dominance and animal welfare. In particular, it explored the ability of behavioural lateralisation to be used as a novel tool for assessing and predicting welfare risk in the domestic pig, a species that is intensively farmed and prone to poor welfare. I carried out data collection in the pig unit at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) in Hillsborough, Northern Ireland.

I completed a BSc in Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast and then successfully obtained a funded scholarship to study an MSc in Data Science at Loughborough University.

My undergraduate thesis explored the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on mental health (depression, loneliness, stress and mood), and assessed the influence of pet ownership and pet attachment on these outcomes.

My master's thesis combined the fields of Psychology and Data Science, aiming to develop machine learning tools capable of improving the accuracy and objectivity of depression detection and diagnosis. Specifically, I built machine learning models that were able to predict depression status using sociodemographic and motor activity data with a high level of accuracy."