Developmental cognitive neuroscientist and Director of the Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY)at UEL
Overview
I am a developmental cognitive neuroscientist who is Director of the Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY) at UEL. ISEY is based in Stratford, East London, in one of the most sociodemographically diverse regions in the world. We develop innovative, world-leading methods to study how early environments shape early development. We then use these insights to provide consultancy, training, and policy advice. More details can be found on the ISEY website, and the ISEY accounts on X, Instagram and Facebook. I also have a personal website and an active account on LinkedIn.
Research Interests
My research examines how stress and emotional arousal influence concentration and learning capacities during early childhood. At UEL, I am Director of the Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY).
Current Research
My own research examines how early-life home and educational environments influence the development of attention and stress. I try to do this based entirely on naturalistic real-world observations of real-world behaviours, and corresponding fluctuations in physiology and brain activity.
I am interested in the development of attention control (how we choose to allocate our attention, second by second) and arousal control (how we change our behaviours to ‘correct for’ exogenously caused increases and decreases in physiological stress). In particular, I am interested in exploring the time dynamics of attention control and arousal control, taking ideas from how we observe and study weather systems to study how attention and arousal states build up and then dissipate.
And I am interested in trying to identify active, effortful processes through which attention and arousal states are either cancelled earlier than they would otherwise, or actively prolonged.
Finally, I am interested in how a child’s early interactions with caregivers (co-regulation) and their everyday environments influence how attention and arousal states develop. More information is available on my personal webpage and the ISEY webpage.
Funding
View a list of my currently funded projects.
Teaching
I am always happy to receive research proposals from students in any of my areas of interest.
Media and PR Work
I am very active in the public communication of science. I appear regularly as an early years expert on television (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky) and radio (all channels), and in all national newspapers.
I have acted as media spokesperson for public campaigns by the Department of Education, Public Health England, Save the Children, Lego, Nickelodeon, and more. I also appeared as one of the psychologists in the multi-award-winning Channel 4/Wellcome Trust series The Secret Life of 4-, 5- and 6-Year-Olds. See my personal website for more information.
Publications
Visit the UEL research repository to view a full list of publications.