I am a postdoctoral research fellow in the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh working on the PREterm Neurodevelopment and COGnition (PRENCOG) study. My role in the study is to collect and analyse fMRI data at 5 years of age to study cognitive outcomes in school-aged children born preterm and at term. The overarching goal is to better understand the brain development of children born preterm in order to better support their positive growth and outcomes as they get older.
I am broadly interested in:
(1) How the ability to comprehend complex narratives develops and the ways in which semantic memory facilitates comprehension
(2) The intersection of semantic and social knowledge in event representation and social experiences and interactions
(3) Where differences exist across neurotypes, in particular in autistic and non-autistic children and adults
To investigate these topics, I use behavioural and neuroimaging methods, most consistently functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to study the semantic cognition system and to explore to what extent social knowledge is housed within this system. Where possible and when the research question is well-suited for it, I use naturalistic stimuli, such as narratives and movies, to better approximate cognition as it occurs in day-to-day life.
My interest in neurotype differences is motivated by the neurodiversity paradigm which acknowledges and values the many different ways of being and engaging with the world. The goal of this line of research is twofold: First, to better understand and, ultimately, provide greater support for the cognitive and neural differences that occur within and between neurotypes. Second, to conduct research with and for autistic people that challenges stigmatizing, deficit-focused accounts of autism.
