Mind Matters: Researching Mental Health in Young People

Dr Amy Orben (2023)

Amy is a Programme Leader Track Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge and a Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge. She leads the Digital Mental Health programme at the MRC CBU.

Her programme’s research examines how digital technologies affect adolescent psychological wellbeing and mental health. She is particularly interested in the potential cognitive, biological and social mechanisms that underlie this link in both non-clinical and clinical populations, and the influence of individual differences. To study such research questions, Amy’s team uses innovative and rigorous statistical methodology, secondary datasets, and Open Science approaches. Their results, in turn, shed new light on pressing questions debated in policy, parenting and mental health, having informed advice given by national and international experts such as the UK Chief Medical Officers and the US Surgeon General.

Previous to joining the MRC CBU, Amy completed an MA in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before joining the University of Oxford to obtain her DPhil in Experimental Psychology, for which she was awarded the BPS Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research 2019.

Caroline Dower (1992)

Caroline is a funded PhD student in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University. Caroline is also a practising psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and trainer.

Her doctoral research focuses on experiences of anxiety in young adults. Caroline aims to establish a theoretical basis for the development of movement-based approaches to everyday as well as clinical experiences of anxiety. The study will explore whether and how movement can inform the theorised ideas about the nature of anxiety, and perhaps challenge the predominant view that anxiety is always related to fear and/or uncertainty.

Liz Monaghan (2011)

Liz matriculated at St John’s in 2011 as the first John Crook Scholar and was awarded a First in Education and English.

She is a Public Contributor with Lived Experience (LE) to NHS research on suicide and self-harm at Manchester University. Her lifelong experiences as a patient and carer have led to many Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Participation (PPIEP) roles at national, regional and local level, including co-authoring several papers.

She also works as a CQC Expert by Experience (MI/LD/ASD) and is a Foster Carer for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children, a Lay Member on three NIHR Research Programme for Social Care funding committees, is currently a LE advisor on mental health research at LSE (carers of LGBTQ+ people living with suicidal thoughts, University of York (policing response to mental health distress) and University of Manchester (National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health –NCISH). In her spare time(!) Liz is a member of a University Research Ethics Committee at Manchester.