As Academic Lead for the UEA Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology, I lead the academic component of the ClinPsyD programme with responsibility for the ClinPsyD curriculum, teaching and timetabling. As a stroke-specialist clinical neuropsychologist, my focus is on widening access to psychological support for stroke survivors and overcoming neuropsychological and psychological barriers to timely, effective stroke rehabilitation. I currently represent Neuropsychology on the NICE stroke rehabilitation guideline update committee. 

I first studied psychology at the University of Cambridge and Oxford Brookes University before working in mental health in the NHS and in MRI and fMRI research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and volunteering with a mental health charity and with the Stroke Association.

I gained a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge working with Professor Lorraine Tyler and Professor William Marslen-Wilson and was subsequently awarded the Pinsent-Darwin Research Fellowship in Mental Pathology. In cognitive neuroscience, I worked with stroke survivors with acquired language impairments and my research focused on what these impairments can tell us about the structure and function of the language system in the brain.

I undertook training in Clinical Psychology at the University of East Anglia (2004-2007). My ClinPsyD thesis research concerned illness perceptions of stroke and their associations with early post-stroke depression and anxiety. As part of my ClinPsyD I undertook elective specialist placements in fronto-temporal dementia and community neuro-rehabilitation.  

After qualifying as a Clinical Psychologist I specialised in neuropsychology, working first in adult neuropsychological rehabilitation in West Norfolk and then the internationally acclaimed Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in Cambridgeshire. In 2011, I was invited to work as part of an innovative, cross-agency partnership project which provided specialist community-based clinical psychology for adult stroke survivors across Cambridgeshire, a service subsequently adopted by the NHS.

My involvement in quality improvement and innovation within stroke resulted in being awarded an NHS Trust Chairman’s Annual Outstanding Achievement Award in 2013, a Quality Improvement Fellowship with Health Education England in 2014 and an Advanced Quality Improvement Fellowship with Health Education England in 2015. 

I am on the British Psychological Society Specialist Register of UK Clinical Neuropsychologists, having gained my British Psychological Society Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology in 2018. As part of this I completed a post-graduate diploma in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol in 2015. Since qualifying I have also gained post-graduate certificates in Work-Based Learning (University of Middlesex) and in Higher Education Practice (UEA).

I am currently training as a European Mentoring and Coaching Council accredited senior practitioner coach.