Mary Heald, PhD student in the Cerebra Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, has been awarded the Pat Howlin Prize by the Society for the Study of Behavioural Phenotypes at their 17th International Symposium in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Mary's work has focussed on the unusually strong sociability seen in children with Anglemans syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, and the relationship between different genetic causes of the syndrome and behavioural outcome. Mary studied for an MRes in the School of Psychology before undertaking her PhD research and has now taken up a Research Fellowship in the Cerebra Centre to study sleep disorders in genetic syndromes.