Lab Members

Lab Directors

Our research programme aims to combine multiple methods in order to understand the emergence of developmental psychopathology and what contributes to resilient outcomes. We lead different, interconnected strands of the DRRU research, but collaborate on all our projects.

Prof Eamon McCrory

Email: e.mccrory@ucl.ac.uk

I am Professor in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at UCL, where I co-direct the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit with Professor Essi Viding. I am also Co-Director of the Education and Training Division at Anna Freud (a leading UK children’s mental health charity) and Co-Director of the UK Trauma Council (UKTC) - a cross national project which creates and disseminates resources to support those working with children and young people who have experienced trauma. I am adjunct Professor at Yale University and a member of the Royal Foundation’s Centre for Early Years advisory group.

My primary research focus is understanding the complex relationship between childhood trauma, the brain, a child’s social world, and their mental health. My research uses brain imaging and psychological approaches to investigate neuro-cognitive factors associated with risk and resilience.  Our recent longitudinal study (NSPCC & ESRC), focused on studying how reward and trust processing is altered following exposure to childhood trauma. This work is particularly relevant to improving our approaches to prevention and better understanding stress generation and social thinning. We have argued that these socially mediated processes are key in helping us understand how mental health vulnerability can emerge following experiences of childhood trauma (McCrory et al, 2022).  

Prof Essi viding

Email: e.viding@ucl.ac.uk

I am a Professor in Developmental Psychopathology at UCL, where I co-direct the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit with Professor Eamon McCrory. I am also a Pro Vice Provost for Mental Health and Wellbeing Grand Challenge at UCL, Chair of UCL’s Children and Young People’s Mental Health Special Interest Group, and adjunct faculty at Yale Child Study Center.

My research focuses on the study of different developmental pathways to persistent antisocial behaviour, as well as mental health problems more broadly. I currently lead two UKRI funded projects. The Prosocial Project examines how adolescents with conduct problems process positive emotions and whether we can train emotion processing in ways that promotes prosocial behaviour in these young people. The ReSET Project is developing and testing a new school-based preventative mental health intervention for adolescents, targeting emotional and social mechanisms. I also head the ‘Preventative Interventions for Child and Adolescent Mental Health’ sub-theme for the UCL Biomedical Research Centre.

Lecturers

Dr Patrizia Pezzoli

Email: p.pezzoli@ucl.ac.uk

I joined the DRRU as a Lecturer in October 2021 to support the implementation of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Strategy chaired by Prof. Essi Viding, to co-convene on the Genes and Behaviours course, and to conduct research on the etiological influences and mechanisms that may lead to negative social interactions. I obtained a BSc in Neuropsychological Sciences and Techniques from the University of Turin, Italy, and a MSc in Neuroscience and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation from the University of Padua, Italy. I then completed a PhD in Psychology at Åbo Akademi University, Finland, where my research primarily focused on the genetic and environmental influences on the variance and covariance of various forms of victimization. I also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research, where my work mainly involved using brain stimulation to improve neurocognitive deficits associated with offending. The broader goal of my research is to disentangle biological and environmental factors that may increase risk of experiencing and/or perpetrating interpersonal violence, to ultimately improve prevention.

Research Fellows

Dr Alex Lloyd

Email: alexander.lloyd@ucl.ac.uk

I completed my PhD in Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London, where I examined cognitive development in adolescence using a combination of behavioural tasks and computational modelling. Prior to this I obtained an MSc in Psychology from the University of Westminster and a BSc in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Hertfordshire. I joined the DRRU in 2022 to work on the UKRI-funded Re-SET project, led by Prof. Essi Viding and Prof. Pasco Fearon. The aim of this project is to develop a novel, transdiagnostic mental health intervention to prevent the onset of psychopathology in adolescence. I am particularly interested in understanding features of cognition that are associated with psychopathology and whether they are amenable to intervention, with the long-term aim of improving outcomes for young people at risk of developing psychopathology.

 

Dr Annie Gaule

Email: anne.gaule.11@ucl.ac.uk

I am a post-doctoral research fellow working on the MRC-funded UCL Prosocial Project, led by Professor Essi Viding. The UCL Prosocial Project focuses on understanding how positive emotional signals are processed in adolescence. It also investigates whether promoting sensitivity to positive emotional signals can increase prosocial behaviours and reduce disruptive behaviours in adolescents who present with challenging behaviors. Prior to this, I completed my PhD in the UCL Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit, where I used a range of methods to study social cognition in adolescents with conduct problems. My main interest is in better understanding individual differences in information processing that are associated with developmental psychopathology, and in understanding how these individual differences influence treatment outcomes. I am particularly interested in research that has the potential to lead to strategies that can support parents and educators.

Dr Tom (Chin-Han) Wu

Email: tom.wu@ucl.ac.uk

I joined the UKRI-funded Re-SET project (led by Prof. Essi Viding and Prof. Pasco Fearon) as a postdoctoral research fellow in March 2022. My role on this project is focused more on the social network and longitudinal data analysis. Prior to joining the team, I completed my PhD in Psychology at King’s College London, as well as a Masters in Counselling Psychology at NCTU in Taiwan and a BSc in Psychology at McGill University in Canada. Using structural equation modelling and network analysis, my PhD project investigated how early child characteristics predict later-life outcomes across different domains (i.e. interpersonal, mental health, socioeconomic).

Project Co-Ordinators and Project Managers

Harriet Phillips

Email: h.phillips@ucl.ac.uk

I am a research project manager and lab manager at the DRRU. I am actively involved with the Prosocial Project, the STAR Project and the HEXACO Project. Prior to this, I completed a BSc in Psychology at the University of Bath and recently an MSc in Forensic Mental Health Research at King’s College London, where I conducted a narrative synthesis of risk factors for violence in prison custody. I have 6 years of research experience working with children and young people, working on projects exploring risk factors for conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits, as well as the impact of childhood maltreatment on development. My research interests include the risk factors underlying conduct problems and callous unemotional traits during adolescence and their developmental trajectories into adulthood.

 

Laura Lucas

Email: l.a.lucas@ucl.ac.uk

I joined the DRRU in Sept 2021 as a Research Coordinator for The ReSET project – building resilience through socio-emotional training. Prior to this, I obtained a BSc in Psychology and Criminology from University of Lincoln, followed by an MSC in Developmental Disorders at Lancaster University. I worked as a Research Assistant at Nottingham Hearing Biomedical Research Unit, studying single-sided deafness in adulthood, followed by a role at University of Leicester on the SHIPS study - Screening to improve Health In very Preterm infantS. I then joined UCL in 2018 as a Research Assistant on the Surrey Communication and Language in Education study (SCALES), a longitudinal cohort study to examine language development from school entry to Year 8.

PhD Students

Dan McGlade

Email: daniel.mcglade.19@ucl.ac.uk

I joined the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit in 2021 as a PhD student on the Developmental Neuroscience and Mental Health programme with Profs Niko Steinbeis and Eamon McCrory. Prior to this, I completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at King’s College London where I undertook a placement year working as a research assistant investigating the effects of trauma in a male prison population. After my undergrad, I completed an MRes in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology across UCL, the Anna Freud Centre and Yale University where I focused my masters thesis on the computational mechanisms of trust in borderline personality disorder. Currently, my interests relate to child maltreatment and the neurocomputational mechanisms underpinning learning, memory and social cognition across development and psychiatric disorders, and the process of leveraging these mechanisms to promote successful therapeutic change.

 

Miranda Copps

Email: miranda.copps.21@ucl.ac.uk

I am PhD student on the UCL-Yale Developmental Neuroscience and Mental Health programme with Profs Argyris Stringaris and Essi Viding. My interests are in the development of mental health difficulties in adolescence, particularly the interplay between biological and environmental risk factors. I previously completed my MRes at UCL, the Anna Freud Centre and Yale in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology. During my research placement at Yale, I used a machine learning approach to understand biopsychosocial correlates of externalising behaviours in early adolescence. For this work, I was supervised by Dr Sarah Yip and I also supported work on substance use and MRI studies in the YIP lab.

Ritika Chokhani

Email: ritika.chokhani.14@ucl.ac.uk

I am a PhD student at the DRRU on the UCL-Wellcome program in Mental Health Science. I am interested in how difficult environments affect children and contribute to mental health problems over time. Before this, I did an MSc at UCL in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice between 2014-2016, which was funded by the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation. I then worked at Ummeed Child Development Center, Mumbai as an autism therapist and researcher between 2016-2018. Between 2018-2020, I did my MPhil in Clinical Psychology at NIMHANS, India. Between 2020-2023, I worked in part-clinical, part-research roles, including being involved in a policy project to update the national guidelines for disaster mental health in India as well as doing some teaching and supervision at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai on the Masters in Applied Psychology.

Research Assistants

Erin Atkinson

Email: erin.atkinson@ucl.ac.uk

I joined the DRRU in 2022 as a research assistant to work on the ReSET project (building resilience through socio-emotional training. Prior to this, I obtained a BSc in Psychology, followed by an MSc in Health Psychology at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Throughout my time at University and early career, I developed an interest in developmental psychology. In particular, exploring psychosocial factors that are associated with developmental psychopathology, and considering how these factors influence mental health effects. Overall I am really interested in research which has the scope to inform approaches aimed to support parents, educators and clinicians.

 

Josh Wood

Email: josh.wood@ucl.ac.uk

I initially joined the DRRU in September as an Honorary Research Assistant during the placement year of my Psychology BSc at the University of Bath. Across this year, I worked on the Prosocial Project, which furthered my interest in developmental psychology, the mechanisms underlying childhood psychopatholgoy and the application of such research to children, their families and educators. My time at the DRRU sparked a particular interest in parental burnout amongst conduct problem populations and how this differs between children with varying levels of callous-unemotional traits. Since graduating in July 2024, I have returned to the DRRU to continue working on the Prosocial Project, as well as assisting with the HEXACO and STAR Projects, where I hope to continue furthering my coding abilities with R.

Libby (Olivia) Stirling

Email: o.stirling@ucl.ac.uk

I joined the DRRU in June 2023 as a Research Assistant for The ReSET project. I received a BSc in Psychology from King’s College London in 2018 and subsequently worked in a range of clinical settings including forensic community and outreach services, adult mental health crisis pathway services, forensic inpatient units, completed a MSc in Clinical Forensic Psychology (2021, KCL) and most recently worked in a CAMHS Neurodevelopmental Assessment Team. Both my clinical and academic experiences have led me to develop deeper understanding of factors extenuating vulnerability to psychopathology as well as the paucity of available, accessible, and effective interventions, I am therefore excited to be a part of the ReSET project, which takes a unique and innovative transdiagnostic approach to contribute to the much needed research in the area of preventative intervention for young people.

Manni (Manveer) Sadhra

Email: manveer.sadhra.21@ucl.ac.uk

I joined the DRRU in January 2023 as a Research Assistant to work on the ReSET project. Prior to this, I completed a BSc in Neuroscience at King’s College London, with a study abroad year at the University of California, Davis; followed by an MSc in Psychological Sciences, here at UCL. Through my university studies and work experience, I have developed a strong interest and goal to work in psychopathology prevention and management, particularly anxiety and depression.