People

Current Members

Rachel Hiller, head of research group
Rachel is a clinical researcher, head of the Child Trauma and Recovery Research Group and Principal Investigator of the ReThink, ADaPT, and RELATE projects. She is also the Head of Postgraduate Studies for the child mental health postgraduate programmes, which are delivered at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.

Her research is in the field of complex child trauma and mental health. Broadly, her work spans three areas: (i) the identification of key psychological and social processes linking trauma exposure the mental health and wellbeing; (ii) the development and testing of scalable mental health intervention for trauma-exposed young people; and (iii) the implementation of existing best-evidenced practice within and across social care and mental health services. Much of her research is focused on improving the identification and support of the mental health needs of care-experienced young people.

Eva Sprecher, Research Fellow on the MyVoice project
Eva is a Research Fellow on MyVoice (NIHR-funded) under Principle Investigator Dr Rachel Hiller. She has been in the Child Trauma and Recovery Group since 2022 when she joined as Research Fellow on the ReThink Programme (UKRI-funded) led by Principle Investigators Professor Rachel Hiller and Professor Lisa Holmes (University of Sussex) which she still supports on. Eva completed her PhD at UCL in 2023, supervised by Professor Nick Midgley and Dr Michelle Sleed. Her PhD research focused on understanding the relationships between foster carers and the young people they care for. Eva’s research exploring the importance of relationships for care-experienced people’s mental health has continued, including the Caregiving and Care project (UCL Mental Health Grand Challenge Pump Priming funded) with Dr Veena Meetoo. Eva is a co-founder, trustee and advisory board member for Lighthouse Pedagogical Trust, a residential care provider using models of social pedagogy. She is committed to participatory research, and she co-produced the illustrated children’s book ‘Where Did My Dinosaur Go?’ with people with lived-experience, now published with Coram BAAF. 

Tara Ramsay-Patel, Research Assistant on the ReThink project
Tara joined the Child Trauma and Recovery Research Group in 2024 as a Research Assistant on the ReThink Programme. Tara is also a Research Fellow with the UK Trauma Council. In Autumn 2025, she will be starting her PhD within the group, exploring suicidal behaviour and self-injury among care-experienced young people. Prior to this, Tara completed her BA in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, followed by an MRes in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at UCL and Yale University. Tara’s research interests focus on developmental psychopathology, marginalised communities, and self-destructive behaviour (e.g., suicidal behaviour, self-injury, and eating disorders). She hopes to contribute to the development of effective, evidence-based interventions for at-risk groups.

Charlotte Ransom, Research Assistant on the MyVoice project
Charlotte completed her BSc in Psychology in 2021, followed by an MSc in Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences at Kings College London. She has since contributed to several studies as a research assistant at UCL within child and adolescent mental health research. She has been involved with the Prosocial Project, which examined interventions promoting prosocial behaviour in children exhibiting challenging behaviours and IMAGINE-2, a longitudinal cohort study which explored mental health outcomes in children with rare genetic conditions and an intellectual disability. Her main research interests lie in developmental psychology, particularly in identifying the factors that inform effective and cost-efficient interventions to support young people, families and educators.

Past Members

• Becky Davis, Postdoctoral Researcher on the ReLATE project
• Paula Olivera, Senior Researcher
• Maryam Javed, Research Assistant on the ReThink project
• Alice Phillips, PhD Candidate
• Grace Kwao, Research Assistant on the ReThink project
• Davin Schmidt, Research Assistant on the ADaPT project
• Rosie McGuire, Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the ADaPT project
• Emily Staite, Clinical Psychologist and Lab/Trial Manager

Affiliated Members

Dr Bethan Carter, Cardiff University
Research Fellow, and post-doctoral researcher on ReThink Programme, supervised by Professor Katherine Shelton.

Dr Charlotte Robinson, Cardiff University 
Research assistant on the ReThink Programme, supervised by Professor Katherine Shelton.