I am passionate about brain, cognitive and psychological health. Most of my interests revolve around identifying biological and cognitive markers of early cognitive change associated with ageing and disease, with the goal of developing targeted intervention strategies to prevent dementia. I take several approaches to my work spanning epidemiological, experimental, and interventional. A secondary interest of mine is the impact of chronic conditions on psychosocial outcomes of informal caregivers (spouses, children). I am increasingly developing a public and global health focus to my work. 

I graduated from University of St Andrews, before completing my PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London.  I then completed post-doctoral research at Bangor University, Wales and the Centre for Dementia Prevention, University of Edinburgh.

I am a member of the Psychobiology and Wellbeing and Psychopathologies research groups within the Psychology department and I am member of the Brain Lab of the Brain Performance and Nutrition Research Centre. External to Northumbria University, I am a member of several cognitive ageing and brain health research working groups comprising academic, pharmaceutical and other industry partners. I am co-founder of B.I.N.D.  (Binding in Neuropsychiatric Disorders) collaboration, ECcRoN (European Consortium for Cross Cultural Neuropsychology), and a founding member of the GloDePP (Global Dementia Prevention Program) collaboration.  I maintain honorarium with Centre for Dementia Prevention, University of Edinburgh. I am happy to assist small business and social enterprises with research development and clinical trial methodology.  

I am currently completing a fellowship for the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). Under this work, I am leading various projects that aim to involve under-represented groups, notably people with Learning Disabilities, in Dementia and Brain Health Research. 

I am also Principal Investigator, along with collaborators Dr Paul Ansell (Sports & Exercise, Northumbria University) and Dr Chi Udeh-Momoh (Ageing Epidemiology (AGE) Research Unit, Imperial College London) on a funded project interested in understanding biopsychosocial determinants of female brain health. 

Students who are interested in the above work are encouraged to contact me for intership opportunities within my lab.