Spotlight on Abi Roper

What is your role and what does it involve?

I'm a Research Assistant on the UCL DCAL On-line Assessment Portal project (http://DCALPortal.org). It's a collaborative project involving researchers from UCL, and City, University of London and software developers Cauldron. My role involves pulling together information from lots of different assessments developed in previous research projects at UCL DCAL in order to translate them into a test that can be delivered on-line. The assessments include measures of speechreading ability, British Sign Language understanding and clinical measures of cognition and dementia for Deaf adults. It's a great project for translational research because it opens up access to a wide variety of UCL DCAL's work on Deafness, Cognition and Language to a broad national (and international) audience of practitioners (e.g. teachers and speech and language therapists) and researchers. In addition to this, when the tests are administered on-line, the anonymised assessment data can then be collected centrally at UCL in order to inform future research and update existing assessment norms.

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I've been at working on this project at UCL since April 2015. Alongside this, I've been finishing up my PhD at City, University of London. The topic of my PhD is computer rehabilitation for people with severe language difficulties (aphasia) after a stroke.

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

I'm a qualified speech and language therapist and I feel very lucky to have access to so much expertise in deafness, cognition and language through my research work. I know that not all clinicians have such opportunities. For this reason I'm passionate about opening up access to such expertise and feel very proud that the Portal website offers such a fantastic opportunity to do so.

Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of you to-do list?

Right now, I'm putting together some training videos for the Portal so that researchers, clinicians and teachers who use the site can learn how to get the most out of it. Video editing is top of my to-do list.

What is your favourite album, film and novel?

I've just finished reading Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene. It was great. Film-wise I'm a sucker for Studio Ghibli - My Neighbour Totoro is my favourite.

Albums are more difficult to choose between because I'm a big music fan and always have something different on. Grace by Jeff Buckley is a strong Contender though.

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)?

What's brass and sounds like trombones?

Tom Jones.

Who would be your dream dinner guests?

Victoria Wood and Edwyn Collins

What advice would you give your younger self?

Persevere. It pays off.

What would it surprise people to know about you?

I have different sized feet. One is size 3 and the other size 5.

What is your favourite place?

A room with people whose company I really enjoy.