Work with thought leaders and academic experts in Developmental Psychology

My core interests lie in understanding how children and adolescents perceive and interpret social signals and how emerging functional specificity of the developing brain supports this process. My approach primarily involves using the face processing system as a model domain. Faces are dynamic stimuli from which we extract many different kinds of information (e.g., gender, age, emotional state, mate potential, social status, trustworthiness, intentions, “person knowledge”). All of these processes must be executed accurately and rapidly for many faces over the course of a single day, making face processing among the most taxing perceptual challenges confronted by people in their day-to-day life. Given that faces are also the pre-eminent social signal, studying developmental changes in the behavioral and brain basis of face processing in typically developing individuals and in those affected by social-emotional disorders may index a core set of developmental changes within the broader social information processing system. I employ converging methodologies, including functional (fMRI) and structural magnetic resonance, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) along with detailed behavioral paradigms in both typically developing populations and those with developmental disorders to examine development from early childhood to adulthood.

I am a developmental psychologist and professor with wide-ranging research expertise. My publications span infancy, childhood, & adolescence. I've been the PI on two NIH grants, and have worked with industry and the media applying and translating developmental science for product development, marketing, and as a free-lance science writer. <br>

Prof. Jenny Gibson is an accomplished scholar and researcher in the fields of neurodiversity and developmental psychology. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Manchester in 2011 and has since held several prestigious positions in academia and industry. Currently, she serves as a Professor of Neurodiversity and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, where she leads groundbreaking research into the role of play in learning and development, the development of language and social emotional skills and the wellbeing of neurodivergent children and young people (autism, language disorders, ADHD). Prof Gibson is a Fellow in Psychology and Education at Christ’s College Cambridge and a Co-director at the Centre for Human Inspired AI.

Dr Sasha Davies is a **cognitive and developmental psychologist** with extensive experience in **psychological research**, **higher education**, and **curriculum design**. Her research explores cognitive change in the perinatal period, early parenthood, empathy, and developmental well-being across the lifespan. She has **published peer-reviewed articles**, presented at national and international conferences, and **supervised research** at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Dr Davies has a strong background in **applied statistical analysis** and **research design**, with a focus on rigorous, ethically grounded methods in psychology. She has **subject matter expertise** in psychology units across all year levels in **tertiary education** and is known for fostering critical thinking, reflective practice, and **scientific literacy** in students. In addition to her academic work, Dr Davies is an **experienced science communicator**. She has written articles and blogs for a general audience, contributed to media interviews including BBC World (London), and appeared on psychology-focused podcasts. Through this work, she brings a unique ability to **translate complex psychological research** into accessible, real-world insights for both **professional and public audiences.**

Adolescent development, parent-adolescent relationships, adolescent brain development, adolescent decision-making