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
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).

Early-career researchers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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