I have a First Class BSc in Psychology from the University of Sunderland and a First Class MSc in Systems Biology of Brain and Behaviour from the Bielefeld University (Germany). My BSc dissertation was a cross-cultural study on the relationship between maternal bonding and eating psychopathology. My MSc thesis project was carried out in the field of Evolutionary Biology, and was looking at the environmental influences on risk taking behaviours in non-hypothetical situations (supervised by Prof Klaus Reinhold).
I worked for a year as a Research Assistant on a project investigating the effects of sucrose detection threshold on motivation and learning in honey bees, which later inspired my PhD research projects. I then worked for a year as a Research Associate on a project looking at the effects of weaning time on acceptance of fruit and vegetables in infants. I have been also a Research Associate in a study looking at the effects of parental prompting behaviours on children’s acceptance of new fruits.