PhD Student
Research Assistant
Contact Details
Email: fpenza01@student.bbk.ac.uk or f.penza@bbk.ac.uk
Supervisors
Professor Emily Jones (Birkbeck, University of London)
Professor Sam Wass (University of East London)
Research Interests
My research interest is to understand what drives individual differences in children’s behaviours and cognitive skills that lead to different developmental trajectories, such as learning differences and neurodivergent outcomes. My research, particularly, focuses on studying how children in the first few years of life develop self-regulation skills and identifying how individual differences in self-control’s behaviours relate to later education, cognitive and mental health outcomes later in childhood. During my PhD, I will use multimodal methodologies such as eye-tracking, EEG, physiological data, fNIRS and longitudinal statistical modelling.
Employment
Research Assistant, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, BabyMIND study 2024 – present
Supervised by Dr Maheen Siddiqui
Research Assistant, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development 2023 – 2024
I have worked on several projects at the BONDS lab (BONDS, Early life Cohort study, Baby Steps and STREAM project) supervised by Professor Emily Jones
Research Assistant, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, INTERLEARN project: 2018 – 2020
Education
PhD Psychology, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck (2022 – to present)
MSc Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology (Distinction), Birkbeck (2018– 2021)
BSc Psychology with Neuroscience, Birkbeck (2014 – 2018)
Pubblications
Bazelmans, T., Penza, F., Begum-Ali, J., Taylor, C., Johnson, M. H., Charman, T., Green, J., Garg, S., Jones, E. J. H., & STAARS and EDEN Teams (2026). Decreased attention in 10- and 14-month-olds with neurofibromatosis type 1 and association with later ADHD traits. Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders, 18(1), 40. https://doi.org/10.1186/s11689-026-09702-3
Gui, A., Throm, E., da Costa, P. F., Penza, F., Aguiló Mayans, M., Jordan-Barros, A., Haartsen, R., Leech, R., & Jones, E. J. H. (2024). Neuroadaptive Bayesian optimisation to study individual differences in infants’ engagement with social cues. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 68, 101401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101401