Summary

I am a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Portsmouth.

My research focuses on pain, injury, rehabilitation, and frailty in a variety of contexts and populations. My work on factors that predispose individuals to become frail in later life and on the relationship between phyiscal activity and pain have been discussed in the media as well as the university's SOLVE magazine and podcast.

I teach Health Psychology and Research Methods in Psychology.

Biography

I graduated from Maastricht University, the Netherlands, in 2011 with an MSc degree in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience. In 2015 I completed a PhD in Psychology, which I divided evenly between KU Leuven in Belgium and McGill University in Canada.

I then took up a post-doctoral position at the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University for two years, and in 2018 I joined De Montfort University in Leicester as a Lecturer in Psychology until 2020.

I am now a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Portsmouth.

Research interests

Broadly, I am interested in (chronic) pain and healthy ageing, in particular the following areas:

1. Biopsychosocial factors influencing different aspects of pain – e.g., fear of pain predicting anatomical spreading of pain
2. The interactions between pain and cognition – e.g., how pain affects cognitive performance and vice versa
3. Recovery from post-surgical pain – e.g., identifying predictors of and developing interventions to improve recovery
4. The interactions between pain and physical activity – e.g., how physical activity affects pain, especially in later life
5. Frailty and healthy ageing – specifically, developing interventions that improve healthy ageing, wellbeing, and reduce the risk of frailty

Teaching responsibilities

Aside from being year 2 tutor for Psychology, I am the module coordinator for the 3^rd year optional “Issues in Clinical and Health Psychology” module. I also teach on the 2^nd year “Psychological Research Methods” module and the MSc Health Psychology.

I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation students.