2024
Emma Francis
Emma is a PhD Candidate on the UCL-Birkbeck Medical Research Council Doctoral Training Programme. She completed her undergraduate degree at Queen’s University Belfast and master’s degree at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. Prior to her PhD, Emma researched severe mental illness in both NHS and academic settings. She joined the CMAP Lab in September 2020 and her research uses genetically informative approaches to understand the relationship between objective and subjective experiences associated with health outcomes. Outside of her PhD, Emma is passionate about improving the collective postgraduate research (PGR) experience and represents UCL PGRs in her elected role as Research Students’ Officer (2022-23).
Lucy Karwatowska
Lucy received her BSc in Experimental Psychology from the University of Bristol (2012 – 2015). She collaborated with the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group on her final-year dissertation which investigated the role of state anxiety on social evaluation learning using carbon dioxide inhalation methods. She gained a distinction for her MSc in Forensic Mental Health Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London (2015 – 2017) and was awarded the Sheilagh Hodgins Prize for the highest dissertation mark in her cohort. She then worked at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust (2017 – 2018) as an Assistant Research Psychologist on an NIHR funded multi-site project investigating the effects of personalised interventions for early onset conduct problems. She started her jointly funded ESRC / BBSRC PhD Studentship in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London in October 2018. Her current research uses causal inference designs to better understand the aetiology of conduct problems, specifically the biosocial risk factors associated with the development of antisocial behaviour. She hopes that the results from her PhD will inform future research, clinical assessments and evidence-based treatments for early-onset conduct problems.
Chiara Gericke
Chiara is a Medical Research Council (MRC) funded PhD student and Behavioural Scientist at University College London. Her research focuses on understanding the complex interplay between factors that contribute to the development of obesity, by integrating methods from a range of disciplines, including epidemiology, psychology, geography, and genetics. More specifically, her research aims to elucidate the role of the built neighbourhood food environment and genetic factors in shaping eating behaviours and weight-related outcomes. For her PhD rotation project in the C-MAP Lab, supervised by Professor Jean-Baptiste Pingault and Dr Jessie Baldwin, Chiara used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) to explore the unique environmental effect of bullying victimisation on BMI after controlling for genetic influences, by conducting a genetic sensitivity analysis (Gsens). If you are interested in learning more about Chiara’s research or for collaboration opportunities, please get in touch.
Nicole Creasey
Nicole is a postdoctoral researcher investigating the role of DNA methylation in the intergenerational transmission of mental health problems. She is interested in how genetics and early life experiences interact to shape the epigenome and influence both risk and resilience for mental health problems. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and a Research Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology from Leiden University. Her doctoral work at the University of Amsterdam focused on understanding the effects of parental factors on children’s DNA methylation and how these effects can be mitigated through early intervention. She also worked with at-risk families as a parenting coach and co-led the implementation of the strengths-based Family Check-Up intervention in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Email: n.creasey@ucl.ac.uk
Twitter: @NicoleCreasey
Elizabeth Orpwood
Elizabeth is a third year MSci Psychology student at UCL, conducting her third-year project in the CMAP lab on the influences of parental cognitive and non-cognitive skills on the mental health of offspring. She is interested in psychiatric genetics and the neurological mechanisms underlying clinical disorders and hope to develop this into a career in research in the future. She is currently completing a UCL Psychology Summer Scholarship project on the attentional difficulties of patients with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and stuttering, and she is hoping to continue research into ADHD in her final year and PhD projects.
Ayana Cant
Ayana is a third-year BSc Psychology student at UCL undertaking her third-year project investigating the genomic effects on stability and changes in psychiatric behaviours using data from the Millennium Cohort Study. Her interests are in the genetic aetiology underlying the pattern of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. She works part-time as an assistant to a clinical psychologist where she works one-on-one with children experiencing neurodevelopmental or behavioural difficulties. She hopes to continue working in the field of psychiatric genetics and clinical psychology post-graduation.
2023
Biyao Wang
Biyao is an Associate Professor at School of Psychology, South China Normal University and a visiting scholar at UCL. Before, Biyao was as a post-doctoral research associate in the lab on a Nuffield-funded project. She completed her PhD in Developmental Psychopathology at University of Goettingen in Germany. During her PhD, she investigated the development relationship of general sleep problems and the transdiagnostic, general psychopathological factor of dysregulation profile. Her current research focuses on understanding the intergenerational transmission of educational achievement. By implementing data of general population samples of trios and genetically informed methods, she aims to quantify the putative causal effect of parental education on children’s educational achievement and distinguish between genetic and environmental pathways of transmission across generations.
Eshim S Jami
Eshim joined the lab in November 2020 as a postdoctoral researcher. Prior to that, her PhD in psychiatric genetics was based at the Department of Biological Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In her PhD work she used molecular genetics statistical methods to gain insight into genetic and environmental pathways of transmission of childhood mental health problems. In the CMAP lab, she will continue to investigate intergenerational transmission of mental health problems using genetically informative methods.
Merle Schlief
Merle is a Wellcome Trust funded PhD student in Clinical Mental Health Sciences. She is currently undertaking a rotation project at the C-MAP lab, supervised by Dr Andrea Allegrini and Prof Jean-Baptiste Pingault, looking at the longitudinal association between BMI and ADHD using mendelian randomization. Previously, she worked as a research assistant at the UCL Division of Psychiatry, primarily for the NIHR funded Mental Health Policy Research Unit. She obtained a BSc in Psychology from the Erasmus University Rotterdam and a MSc in Clinical Mental Health Sciences from UCL.
2022
Kai Xiang Lim
Kai graduated from University College London (UCL) with a first class and Dean’s List award in BSc (Hons) Psychology. During his undergraduate project, his research focused on how low birth weight affects Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) using twin difference designs under the supervision of Dr Jean-Baptiste Pingault and Professor Essi Viding, a paper now published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. He then completed an MSc in GED PP (Genes, Environment and Development in Psychiatry and Psychology) with distinction, at the SGDP (Social, Genetics and Developmental Psychiatry) centre, King’s College London. He is currently pursuing a PhD under at the same research department under the supervision of Professor Fruhling Rijsdijk and Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pingault. His PhD thesis focused on investigating the genetic and environmental aetiologies of self-harm, particularly in the aetiological differences between suicidal and non-suicidal self-harm.
Sarah Stock
Sarah is a PhD candidate who completed a rotation project at the C-MAP lab as part of the jointly funded ESRC/BBSRC PhD Studentship in Biosocial Research at UCL. Before starting her PhD training in September 2020, Sarah worked as a mixed methods Research Assistant at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, evaluating school-based interventions for young people’s mental health. Prior to this she completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Liverpool, where her research focussed on anxiety, cyberbullying victimisation and sexuality. Her interests are focussed on the wellbeing of adolescents and the impact of inequalities on their experiences
Anna Hall
Anna was a PhD student doing a rotation in the lab, applying Mendelian randomisation to mental health outcomes.
Anna Tsaligopoulou
Anna was an MRes student in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at UCL and Yale University. She completed her B.A. in Psychology and Sociology at Skidmore College, US. Anna has worked as a lab Research Assistant on a range of different psychiatric disorders. Her research interests are focused on the intersection of biological factors and environment and their effect on the development of childhood psychopathology. In addition, she is also interested in the multicultural perspective of psychopathology.
Ellen Martin
Ellen is a final year BSc Psychology student at University College London. For her dissertation on the association between substance use and psychiatric disorders, she is analysing GWAS summary data using Genomic Structural Equation Modelling to investigate the shared genetic mechanisms responsible for specific psychiatric disorders and use of substance.
2021
Chaoyu Liu
Chaoyu finished her MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences at University College London and did her research project investigating ADHD symptom development from childhood to adolescence in the lab. Before coming to the UK, Chaoyu was a psychiatrist specialising in child and adolescent mental health in National Taiwan University Hospital. She is interested in the developmental trajectories of mental health problems and factors influencing underlying pathways. For example, although ADHD is known to be highly heritable, environmental factors, such as perinatal insult and maternal depression are also associated with higher ADHD risk. Chaoyu is also interested in the interaction between different psychiatric disorders, and how one condition may facilitate the development of the other. Chaoyu has been awarded a competitive UCL Overseas Research Scholarship and has started pursuing those two research questions during her PhD years at UCL.
Adam Socrates
Adam was a PhD student currently based at the Social, Genetic, Developmental Psychiatry Centre (SGDP) at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London (KCL). After completing an MSc at the SGDP investigating the associations between the polygenic influence on mental health traits and behavioural and personality outcomes, he worked for a year as a research assistant at the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) looking into the pharmacogenetics of antipsychotics and their side effects. His PhD work, under the supervision or Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pingault and Dr. Paul O’Reilly, focused on using multiple causal inference methods to better understand the causal pathways and networks between genetic risk of psychiatric disorders, behavioural and personality traits, environmental risk factors, and diagnosis.
2020
Kevin Wee
Kevin was a final year BSc Psychology student at University College London. He did his dissertation research in “Investigating Psychopathological co-morbiditiy in Childhood and Adolescence using Network Analysis”. His research project involved using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), and focused on applying machine learning to network analysis.
Athena Chow
Athena was a third-year BSc Psychology student at University College London. For her dissertation research, she analysed data from the Millennium Cohort Study to map the joint trajectories of bullying victimisation and perpetration, identifying the early predictors of bullying trajectories from childhood to adolescence.
Dan was a PhD candidate conducting a rotation project as part of the UCL-Birkbeck MRC Doctoral Training Partnership. He graduated from University College London in 2019 with a first-class Integrated Masters (MSci) degree in Natural Sciences, with a major in Cell and Molecular Biology, and a minor in Mathematics and Statistics. His undergraduate research project, based in the UCL Genetics Institute, focussed on the identification of genetic variants associated with epigenetic variation in Gambian children, potentially alluding to rapid adaptation within a dynamic environment. The aim of his research within the C-Map laboratory was to investigate causal pathways contributing to peer victimisation, using genetically informed approaches.
Hugo Peyre
Hugo is a visiting scholar from Paris Diderot University (INSERM UMR 1141), France. During his PhD under the supervision of Franck Ramus at the LSCP (Cognitive Sciences and Psycholinguistics Laboratory, Paris) he examined the environmental factors influencing cognitive development during the preschool period in the French EDEN cohort. He is also consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Robert Debré hospital in Paris. His current research focuses on methodological approaches using polygenic instruments within family-based designs to study the effects of prenatal environmental factors on cognitive development.
2019
Yusuke Takahashi
Dr. Yusuke Takahashi was a visiting scholar from Kyoto University, Japan. He received his doctorate in personality psychology from the University of Tokyo in 2008, and worked as a postdoctral researcher at Keio University at Tokyo, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign until 2011 when he joined the faculty at Kyoto University. His primary research focus was to understand the underlying individual differences in personality development across the lifespan and their relations to everyday life style and physical health as well as various forms of psychopathology. Another research focus was human behavioral genetics using twin method, in particular genetic and environmental factors influencing the development of personality and associated internalizing and externalizing behaviors during adolescence and adulthood.
Eleonora Iob
Eleonora graduated with a first class BSc (Hons) Psychology from the University of Manchester in 2016. As a result of her excellent academic performance, she was awarded a full-tuition scholarship for an MSc in Social Statistics and Research Methods at The University of Manchester, which she completed in 2017 achieving a Distinction. As part of her undergraduate project, Eleonora conducted an online survey investigating the link between stressful life events and psychotic-like phenomena in a student sample. In addition, for her MSc thesis she examined the association between socioeconomic position and the risk of poor health using inflammatory biomarkers in the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Eleonora was a PhD rotation student at University College London part of the Biosocial Centre for Doctoral Training, jointly funded by the BBSRC and ESRC. For her second rotation, Eleonora worked in the lab on a research project about genetic influences on substance use in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children with Dr Jean-Baptiste Pingault and Tabea Schoeler.
Paige Erkiert
Paige was a third-year BSc Psychology student at University College London, who undertook her dissertation research on the effects of maternal cannabis use on child mental health.
2018
Lauren Duncan
Lauren graduated with a first class BSc (Hons) Psychology at University College London. She did her dissertation research on the effects of bullying on mental health outcomes. She used data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)-which tracks the Millennium children through their early childhood years to adulthood. Lauren is currently writing up here dissertation research for publication.
Stephanie Cahill
Stephanie was a rotation student in the lab. She completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Zoology at the University of Bristol, followed by a Masters in Human Evolution and Behaviour at University College London. Her MSc thesis examined the effect of prenatal and postnatal environment on the risk of later behavioural difficulties, using data from ALSPAC.
She is now part of the BioSocial Centre for Doctoral Training, funded by the BBSRC and ESRC. Her PhD project aims to build an integrative model of resilience that concurrently examines environmental, psychological and biological processes and their interplay at varying developmental periods.
2016
Yan Li
Yan did her MRes Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL in 2016. Her Master thesis in the lab entitled “Why does the developmental course of inattention symptoms predict educational achievement?” was awarded by the Shallice Prize and Dean’s list. She is now at the Beijing Normal university working as a product manager.
Timothy Singham
Tim graduated from University College London with a First Class Honours in BSc Psychology. He completed his undergraduate dissertation in the lab under the Supervision of Dr Jean-Baptiste Pingault and Prof Essi Viding. The study was entitled “Peer Victimisation as an independent predictor of Conduct Problems and CU traits: A longitudinal twin differences study”. He was named the Winner of the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences Undergraduate Conference, where he presented his dissertation findings. In collaboration with several authors, Tim co-authored a paper entitled “Concurrent and Longitudinal Contribution of Exposure to Bullying in Childhood Mental Health: The Role of Vulnerability and Resilience” which has been published in JAMA Psychiatry. Tim is grateful to have been mentored by such nurturing supervisors, and to have been part of the lab, which has allowed him to pursue his combined interests in Clinical, Educational and Developmental Psychology. He currently holds the position of Associate Psychologist, working with children with special educational needs in Singapore.