Profile

I am a Psychology PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London. My research is all about when and why teenagers take risks. A lot of people think it’s bad that teenagers take risks, but I think there are good sides to risk taking too! In my spare time I like to go to the cinema 🎥 or go to the gym 🏋. In 2018 I completed my second Tough Mudder 🏃 and am currently training for my third this September!

I also like to travel, and in 2015 I spent a year travelling Asia and the Middle East. I got to try a lot of good food and see a lot of cool sights. It also made me realise how important psychology is as our brains share a lot in common!

Pronouns: he/his

As a PhD student I do research where I try to answer the question about when and why teenagers take risks. I look at how risk taking actually helps teenagers to learn more about their surroundings and is important for them to grow into adults who are independent. I also look at how friends can help us to make positive decisions when we face risky situations.

A lot of my time is spent reading research papers written by other more experienced psychologists who have done research on this topic! As well as reading, I also design my own research making tasks that I then ask teenagers to take part in. These can be games or questionnaires that help us to understand the psychology that goes into teenagers’ risk behaviour. I then compare how adults perform on these tasks to see if there are differences between teenagers and adults. Excitingly, a lot of the time there are differences!

My desk

I also work with young people who have committed crime at the Hackney and Islington Youth Offending Services. I help young people who are given community sentences to complete their sentences and hopefully go on to make more positive decisions in the future. I currently work as a Trainer with the National Citizen Service (NCS), where I train the next generation of youth workers to deliver the NCS programme to young people across London and the South East of the country.

This was me last year giving a talk about youth offending

My days vary a lot with the PhD. Some days I will sit and read all day and make a few notes here or there. Other times, I will be visiting schools running my studies with teenagers or giving talks.

This is me chatting away!

Sometimes, I am able to watch MRI scans, which is when we take pictures of the brain to work out which parts are activated (light up) when we make decisions (that’s a picture of my brain you see below!).

During term time, I teach and so I will spend an hour or two talking to students about how we do research in psychology. The only typical thing about my days is how much I enjoy them!