Our people

Institute for Life Sciences

Our strength lies in our interdisciplinary collaborative network which is made up of over 380 academic members from across all the University’s faculties.

Professor Katherine Newman-Taylor

Professorial Fellow-Education

Research interests

CBT and mindfulness for psychosis
Attachment based interventions for psychosis
Recovery approaches to living well with severe mental ill-health

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Katherine

Email: K.Newman-Taylor@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 2655

ORCID

Dr Kathy Carnelley

Associate Professor

Research interests

My research area is personal relationships. I investigate the ways in which attachment experiences with parents and romantic partners influence how people view the self, others and relationships. My research focuses on how models of self and others influence people's thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in romantic relationships, for example relationship functioning and caregiving. I am co-founder of the UK Attachment Network.
One stream of my research focuses on moving people toward felt security. Attachment security is associated with better relationship quality and well-being. I examine the extent to which temporarily activated attachment security (via priming) can lead to these positive outcomes in a series of studies. With my colleagues and students, for example, I have investigated the effects of priming attachment security on self-views and relationship-views, feelings of vitality and energy, pain sensitivity, mental health, and therapy attitudes. In addition, I have tested ways to increase the impact of a security prime via repeated priming in the lab, online, or via text messaging.
Other streams of research focus on attachment networks (e.g., who serves as attachment figures, how they change over time). Recently I’ve investigated the role of partners in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic, examining personal and relational wellbeing and goals. I’m also interested in close relationships and technology use (e.g., technoference).

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Kathy

Email: K.Carnelley@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 3004

ORCID

Dr Katie Meadmore

Senior Research Fellow

Research interests

Research on research
Qualitative research
Ethics in research

Connect with Katie

Email: K.Meadmore@soton.ac.uk

ORCID

Professor Katrin Deinhardt

Professor

Research interests

Short- and long-range neurotrophin signalling and its role in morphological plasticity
Early neuronal dysfunction in disturbed proteostasis
Cellular mechanisms that underlie tau propagation across neurons

Connect with Katrin

Email: K.Deinhardt@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 4353

Google Scholar

ORCID

Dr Katy Sivyer CPsychol, DPhil, MSc, BA

Lecturer

Research interests

Understanding how psychological treatments and behaviour change interventions work

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Katy

Email: K.A.J.Sivyer@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 7162

ORCID

Professor Keith Godfrey

Associate Dean Enterprise

Connect with Keith

Email: kmg@mrc.soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8077 7624

ORCID

Twitter

Dr Kelvin Peh

Assoc Professor of Conservation Science

Research interests

Kelvin Peh’s interests range from forest ecology to urban wildlife in respect of diversity and distribution. He is interested in all areas of wildlife-human conflicts and wildlife ecology in human-dominated landscapes, and in the application of his research results to the conservation/management of biological resources.
Tropical Forest Ecology – Kelvin’s work on monodominance in tropical tree-dominated systems - has helped rekindle scientific interest in this fascinating, yet relatively unexplored phenomenon in tropical forests. He has completed editing – as a principal editor – a “Routledge Handbook of Forest Ecology” that was published by Routledge under its “Earthscan” imprint. Currently, he is working on the 2nd edition of this handbook.
Ecosystem Services – Kelvin is best known for his leading role in the development of TESSA (Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment). TESSA v3.0, published on 31 Oct 2022, is now available at http://tessa.tools/. He continues working on this ecosystem service assessment project to develop and test novel tools for rapidly assessing the net impact of site-based conservation on the provision of ecosystem services. This project runs in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, BirdLife International, Tropical Biology Association, Anglia Ruskin University and UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Kelvin

Email: K.Peh@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 4367

ORCID