I study the neurobiological and psychological mechanisms of adaptive behaviour and learning, including how they develop, and what role they play in psychopathology.

I use human brain and body imaging (functional and structural MRI and MRS), psychophysiology, cross-species methods, behavioural analysis, and mathematical modelling.

With collaborators from multiple disciplines and societal sectors we take a molecules-to-mind approach to human cognition and behaviour.

We value open research practices, slow science, interdisciplinarity, and personal development.

I studied biology (BSc, 1997) at Imperial College, and behavioural neuroscience (PhD, 2002) at Cambridge with Professors Barry Everitt and Trevor Robbins.

I then visited the lab of Professor Patrick Haggard at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL (2003). Next I moved to the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London for further postdoctoral training (2004).

At the IoPPN I worked in developmental cognitive neuroscience with Professors Katya Rubia and Eric Taylor at the Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, and I trained in neuroimaging with Professors Mick Brammer and Gareth Barker, at the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences.

I moved to Reading in 2009 as a lecturer in Developmental Psychopathology. Sponsored by the Royal Society, I left briefly to train in computational modeling at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute with Professor Yael Niv in 2010.

In 2014 I was named a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

In 2015 I was awarded a Media Fellowship by the British Science Association, funded by the BBSRC. This enabled me to briefly leave Reading again to work as a science journalist at Nature.

I have been leading CINN since 2018. I was named Professor of Neuroscience in 2020.