Spotlight on... Jennifer Symonds

What is your role and what does it involve? 

I am the Director of CLOSER (Cohort and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources), which is based in the UCL Social Research Institute at IOE, Faculty of Education and Society. At CLOSER, I work with a talented team of professional and academic staff who are responsible for maximising the value, impact, and utility of UK longitudinal population studies data. I am also the Scientific Director for Growing Up in Digital Europe (GUIDE), which is Europe’s first longitudinal population study of children and young people.  

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

I joined UCL in September 2023. Previously I managed large-scale cohort studies and a randomised controlled trial at University College Dublin in Ireland. Our Children’s School Lives study followed two cohorts of children across primary school to establish their lived experiences and changes in their wellbeing, engagement, and learning outcomes. In Sierra Leone, West Africa, we ran a randomised controlled trial of children’s literacy and wellbeing in 100 communities. 

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of? 

My proudest achievement as a researcher is having designed a versatile measure of children’s hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing that has been used in large samples of children and adolescents in Sierra Leone, Ireland, India, and Ukraine. This measure can be used in short or long format and has excellent psychometric properties. My hope is that by using this measure we will learn a lot more about happiness and confidence in childhood internationally.   

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

This April we began working on our European Commission funded project LEARN (Longitudinal Educational Achievements: Reducing Inequalities). I am very excited to be managing five systematic reviews that will bring together the evidence on educational inequalities generated by longitudinal population studies in Europe and the UK. In LEARN, we will compare how inequalities in education develop across childhood and adolescence in Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland, and the UK.  

What is your favourite album, film and novel? 

I’m a musician – can I please choose more than one album?! I love Unreal Unearth by Hozier, Diva by Annie Lennox, Zaba by Glass Animals, Heaven & Hell by Black Sabbath, Dirt Floor by Chris Whitley, Harmony House by Dave Dobbyn, Magical Ring by Clannad, Discovery by Mike Oldfield, and Floodland by Sisters of Mercy.

I’m also a fantasy fan. The book The Magician by Lev Grossman is a superb fusion of the past 100 years of fantasy iconography. Another fantasy landmark and personal favourite is the film Labyrinth by Jim Henson.  

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)? 

I can only remember jokes from my childhood copy of The Ha Ha Bonk Book. I eat my peas with honey, I’ve done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny but it keeps them on the knife.  

Who would be your dream dinner guests? 

I would most like to have dinner with my mother and father in a world where my father is enjoying his 70s and does not have crippling Lewy Body Dementia with Parkinsons.  

What advice would you give your younger self? 

Become a psychology researcher. Learn tennis now because you’ll have more fun later. Don’t date that person, they are bad news. Invest in clean energy. Don’t get all those piercings. Being bullied makes you stronger. Don’t worry too much about failing school, your interest in school engagement will lead to you becoming a professor in the world’s number one ranked Institute of Education. It doesn’t matter what you learn so long as you stay engaged in learning.   

What would it surprise people to know about you? 

I used to be a Tussock Moth Trapper for the Aotearoa Ministry of Forestry. This job involved walking for four hours per day through people’s gardens, setting traps for a moth that could potentially destroy Aotearoa’s forests.  

What is your favourite place?   

Lake Waikeremoana in Te Urewera, Aotearoa.