Personal Statement
First Degree BSc, graduated 2009: Psychology (Hons) 1st Class, University of Chester (Department of Psychology). MSc graduated 2010: Research Methods in Psychology Distinction, University of Liverpool (Department of Psychology). PhD graduated 2018: Clinical Psychology, University of Liverpool (Department of Psychology).

I am an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool and a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am co-investigator on the adolescent data collection on the Wirral Child Health & Development Study (WCHADS) and work with a number of other international cohorts.

My research focuses on identifying the mechanisms underlying mental health problems in childhood and adolescence. My research combines multiple levels of explanation (biological, social, individual) using multi-method of data (interview, observational, experimental, biological, survey data). I am particularly interested in the role of relationships (parent-child, peer, romantic) in the intergenerational transmission of mental health problems. My post-doctoral work was completed in the Biostatistics Department at Kings College London and I use advanced statistical methods to characterise developmental pathways to mental health problems and to refine measurement of constructs. My PhD and postdoctoral work focused on behavioural problems in childhood, and driven by the current mental health crisis in adolescence, my recent work focuses on adolescent emotional and behavioural problems. I mainly work with longitudinal child development cohorts.

Research Overview
My main program of work focuses on understanding how relationship experiences transmit risk or confer resilience for mental health problems, including parent-child relationships, friendships and romantic relationships. This includes understanding the processes in the inter-generational transmission of inter-partner abuse from parent to adolescent relationships, and the role of parent-child relationships in conferring risk and resilience for mental health problems. More broadly my research interests lie in understanding mechanisms for the emergence and maintenance of mental health problems using longitudinal study designs. I am interested in understanding the risk and protective factors for the broad spectrum of mental health difficulties, including behavioural/antisocial, emotional and personality disturbances. My work also involves examining whether processes operate across cultures or are culture specific and across populations of typically developing and autistic individuals.

I have expertise in statistical analysis, in particular longitudinal modelling and latent variable modelling. I also have expertise in longitudinal study design and in co-ordinating longitudinal research studies, and in harmonising and jointly analysing different datasets.