I have a research and teaching background in Psychology. I attained a BSc, MSc and finally  PhD in Psychology from the University of Dundee. In 2014, I began my first postdoctoral research post at Saarland University (Germany). In 2016, I joined the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD) at the University of Manchester, where I carried out several studies on children’s language development. After a brief stint as a lecturer at Staffordshire University, I spent four years as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. In March 2024, I joined Manchester Metropolitan University as a Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology.

I have a passion for teaching areas of applied psychology and research methodology. When teaching, I try to employ student-led and interactive approaches in the classroom and lecture hall.

My Expertise is in quantitative research methods in the areas of Developmental, Cognitive and Social Psychology. I have particular research interests in the following:

- Social attention and non-verbal communication.
I am interested in how the social world affects our attention and perception, how it influences the way in which we think and communicate and how this develops over the lifespan. I have primarily used eye movements and social gaze cues to investigate these issues. I am currently supervising a funded PhD project on the use of non-verbal cues in different blended learning contexts (pre-recorded, live online, in-person) across different educational stages (Primary, Secondary and Higher education).

- Language processing and development.
I have investigated the linguistic factors (e.g. syntax, animacy) and individual differences (e.g. working memory, cognitive inhibition) that affect children and adult’s comprehension of spoken complex sentences. Using eye-tracking methods, I have been able to tap-in to participants’ online processing as these sentences unfold to reveal the syntactic choices they make in real-time.

- Applications of eye-tracking.
Much of my research has involved eye-tracking methodologies and I maintain an interest in the insights these methods can provide across several research areas, such as reading, sports, film, locomotion and art. For example, as part of a large interdisciplinary AHRC project, I have carried out eye-movement research on how people visually engage with historic objects. I plan on continuing to work with non-psychologists on applied eye-tracking projects.