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Meet the Team

We are a diverse team of psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists and data scientists passionate about improving mental health outcomes for children and young people, including those who are neurogivergent and from ethnic minority groups.

Lab Director

Giorgia Michelini, PhD

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Dr Giorgia Michelini is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Neurodiversity and Mental Health at QMUL. After pursuing her PhD in Developmental Psychopathology & Neuroscience at King’s College London, she completed postdoctoral fellowships in the US at SUNY Stony Brook and UCLA, supported by the NIHR, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation. In 2021, she returned to the UK to take up her current position and start the TREND Lab, while still retaining a Visiting Faculty position at UCLA. She is also an Editor of JCPP Advances and an active member of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology Consortium (HiTOP) and European Network for ADHD (EUNETHYDIS).

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Early-career researchers

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Shiqi Lu

PhD student

Shiqi's PhD project at QMUL, funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC), focuses on the early predictors and outcomes of depression in young people from the general population and with ADHD. 

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Emma Hayashibara

PhD student

Emma's PhD project at QMUL, funded by an ESRC LISS DTP studentship, focuses on understanding how neurodivergent young people from diverse backgrounds experience and present mental health challenges.

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Jure Bužinel

PhD student

Jure's PhD project at QMUL, funded by a QMUL studentship, focuses on the mechanisms underlying mental health problems in neurodivergent and neurotypical young people.

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Chiara Caserini

PhD student

Chiara's PhD project at QMUL, funded by an ESRC LISS DTP studentship, investigates the link between childhood neurodevelopmental conditions and health outcomes across the lifespan, with a particular focus on mental health and in adolescence.

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Eloise Funnell

PhD student

Eloise's PhD project at Royal Holloway and QMUL, funded by the ESRC Social Purpose CDT studentship, focuses on predictors and outcomes of met and unmet needs in school children and adolescents with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

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Jingni Yan

PhD student

Jingni's PhD project at QMUL, funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and co-supervised with Valdas Noreika, focuses on the association between mind wandering and mental health conditions, with a focus on temporal orientation.

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Rosie Daview

PhD student

Rosie's PhD project at QMUL, funded by an ESRC LISS DTP studentship and co-supervised with Elisabetta Versace and Manuela Angioli, aims to develop an in-person positive psychology intervention to improve wellbeing in young people, with a focus on teenage professional dancers.

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Jieying (Kit) Huang

PhD student

Kit's PhD project at QMUL, funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and co-supervised with Elisabetta Versace and Manuela Angioli, seeks to develop and validate an open-source web app to deliver a positive psychology intervention to promote wellbeing in young people.

Alumni

Dr Danilo Di Emidio - Post-doc at QMUL (2023-24). Currently Teaching Fellow at QMUL

Muskaan Admani - Research assistant at QMUL (2022-23). Currently PhD student at QMUL

Dr Juan Diego Vera - PhD student at UCLA (2019-21). Currently Research Scientist at Leidos

Dr Andrea Dillon - Clinical Post-Doc (2019-24). Currently Clinical Neuropsychologist at UCLA

Joel Diaz - Research associate at UCLA (2019-21). Currently PhD student at University of Toronto

Holly Truong - Research associate at UCLA (2019-21). Currently research administrator at UCLA

Dr Isabella Vainieri - PhD student at KCL (2017-21). Currently Teaching Fellow at Royal Holloway

Dr Natali Bozhilova - PhD student at KCL (2017-21). Currently post-doc at KCL

Dr Sophie Carruthers - PhD student at KCL (2016-19). Currently Project Leader at Boston Consulting Group
 

Key Collaborators

Dr Margherita Malanchini - QMUL

Dr Jessica Agnew-Blais - QMUL

Dr Georgina Hosang - QMUL

Dr Eda Mizrak - QMUL

Dr Kaili Rimfeld - Royal Holloway University of London

Prof Francesca Happe - KCL

Prof Jonna Kuntsi - KCL

Dr Nicoletta Adamo - KCL

Dr Toby Wise - KCL

Dr Kate Cooper - UCL

Prof Sandra Loo - UCLA

Dr Agatha Lenartowicz - UCLA

Dr Sylia Wilson - University of Minnesota

Prof Tom Olino - Temple University

Dr Brady Nelson - SUNY Stony Brook University

Prof Roman Kotov - SUNY Stony Brook University

Prof Daniel Klein - SUNY Stony Brook University

Prof Deanna Barch - University of Washington St. Louis

Dr Monika Waszczuk - Rosalind Frankin University

Prof Marco Battaglia - University of Toronto

Dr Miriam Forbes - Macquarie University

Our research is generously funded by

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