Dashboard – Psychology Zone

Education:

Camelsdale Primary School (primary)
Bohunt School (secondary)
Alton College (sixth form)

University of Leeds (undergraduate)
University of Reading (masters)
Royal Holloway University of London (PhD)
Qualifications:

I have 12 GCSEs, 3 A-levels (English Literature, English Language, Sociology), and 2 AS-levels (Media Studies, Law).

I have a bachelors degree in Linguistics & Phonetics, a masters degree in Research Methods in Psychology and I am studying for my PhD in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. I have been studying for a long time!

I didn’t know that I wanted to be a scientist straight away, and for me this didn’t matter at all.
Work History:

Parliament Research Fellow, PhD Student, Research Assistant, Tuition Centre Manager, Sainsbury’s Shelf-Stacker, Restaurant Pot Washer, Elderly Care Home Assistant.
Current Job:

I currently work as a PhD student, where I study people’s brains at Royal Holloway University of London. I also work part-time at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, where I write about a whole range of science topics that are important for society.

About Me:

I am a Psychology PhD student researching how we transform squiggles on a page into meaningful messages when we read. I like swimming, going to gigs and eating breakfast foods at any time of the day.
My Typical Day:

My typical day involves getting people to read aloud strange made-up words and look at funny symbols while I scan their brains. I also spend a lot of time coding and trying to get my code to run!
Read more

Every day is quite different, which is one of my favourite things about my job. I might be:

– thinking about a research question and designing an experiment

– creating unusual stimuli (such as made-up languages with made-up alphabets)

– collecting data scanning people’s brains at the MRI scanner

– analysing data using statistics and coding

– presenting my findings with a talk or a poster at a conference

I love travelling to share the latest research findings with other scientists. So far I have travelled to Belgium, Spain, Finland, Boston and Houston to present my research!
What I'd do with the prize money:

I’d run an interactive workshop for school students on how Parliament uses science to inform policy (which are big decisions that affect all our lives).

Clare Lally