Centre for Childhood Studies
Our members
Who's who
Department of Sociology and Criminology
Department of Psychology
Dr Silvia Rigato
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology
Research interests:
Face and emotion processing in infancy.; The development of body representation and tactile localisation.; The development of the neural basis of shared touch.; Perinatal mental health.
Dr Megan Klabunde
Lecturer, Department of Psychology
Research interests:
Interoception; Interoceptive Development; Interoception and its links to Mental Health Development during Adolescence
Dr Andrew Simpson
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology
Research interests:
The emergence of inhibitory control in children. Inhibitory control is the capacity to regulate our thoughts, behaviour and emotions, and so take charge of our own lives.
Dr Maria Filippetti
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology
Research interests:
body representations; interoception; hunger and satiety; multisensory development
Dr Pascal Vrticka
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology
Research interests:
Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Hyperscanning; Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience; Attachment; Bio-Behavioural and Interpersonal Neural Synchrony; Caregiving; Epigenetics; (Functional) Magnetic Resonance Imaging - (f)MRI
Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Dr Norman Gabriel
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Research interests:
Trouble and Taboo - Comparative Research on Childhood; Crossing the narrow bridge: the socio-emotional development of young children.; Group Processes in Children's Relationships
Dr Chris Nicholson
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Research interests:
Issues facing looked after children, particularly trauma, transitions and leaving care; Assessment of children and adolescents; Therapeutic Communities
Dr Carolyn Laubender
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Arianna Pulsoni
Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Research interests:
Infant Mental Health; Intergenerational trauma and family difficulties; Autism and early trauma; Organizational Dynamics and group Dynamics; Wellbeing in Schools: how to improve approaches to wellbeing in schools, providing early interventions,short interventions,parents work and group work for staff.; The integration of Psychoanalysis with Philosophy; The applicaton of Psychoanalytic theories to non clinical disciplines; History of Psychoanalysis; Trauma and Refugees: setting up a methodology in working with refugees and their staff.; Child Psychotherapy
Professor Raluca Soreanu
Professor, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Research interests:
• Psychoanalytic theory and metapsychology; • The history and epistemology of psychoanalysis; • The Budapest School on Psychoanalysis; the work of Sándor Ferenczi and Michael Balint; • Trauma theories and the study of collective trauma; • Fragmentation and psychic splitting; • Theories of recognition; • Psychosocial studies of collective creativity; • Time studies; • Contemporary social theories; post-humanist theories; feminist theories; • Sociology of emotions; sociology of creativity; sociology of knowledge; • Epistemologies and methodologies of the social sciences and of psychosocial studies
Dr Emilia Halton-Hernandez
Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Research interests:
Object relations theory; The infant mind and infant mental health; Theories of creativity; Historical understandings of childhood and infancy; History of psychoanalysis; Psychoanalysis, art and literature
Dr Ebenezer Cudjoe
Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Research interests:
Child protection; Children whose parents have mental illness; Research methodologies; Children's rights
Dr Katharina Rowold
Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Research interests:
History of infancy, childhood, and motherhood; history of psychoanalysis and child psychology; women's and gender history; medical humantities
Dr Madeleine Wood
Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Department of Language and Linguistics
Dr Christina Gkonou
Reader (R), Department of Language and Linguistics
Research interests:
Psychology of foreign language learning and teaching; Language teacher emotions, emotional labour and emotional capital; Language teacher agency and identity; Affective and meta-affective strategies for language learning; Language teacher education; Social and emotional learning; Language learner and teacher wellbeing
Dr Ella Jeffries
Lecturer, Department of Language and Linguistics
Research interests:
Sociolinguistics; Sociophonetics; Regional accents/dialects; Variation in language acquisition
Dr Karen Roehr-Brackin
Reader, Department of Language and Linguistics
Research interests:
Additional or second language (L2) learning across the lifespan; Explicit and implicit knowledge and processes in L2 learning; Cognitive individual differences in L2 learning: language learning aptitude, working memory, cognitive style
Dr Rebecca Clift
Senior Lecturer, Department of Language and Linguistics
Research interests:
Conversation Analysis with particular interests in; Grammar & Interaction; Territories of Knowledge; Reported Speech; Laughter in interaction; Embodiment in interaction; Indirect language
School of Health and Social Care
Dr John Day
Lecturer, School of Health and Social Care
Research interests:
Generational sociology; Individualisation
Dr Sagaradevi Barratt
Senior Lecturer, School of Health and Social Care
Research interests:
Mental health; Qualitative research methods; Education; Phenomenology; Enactivist approaches
Professor Frances Blumenfeld
Professor, School of Health and Social Care
Professor Susan McPherson
Deputy Director of IPHW and Professor (R), School of Health and Social Care
Research interests:
Therapy outcomes and effectiveness; Social care, fostering and adoption; Chronic depression: long term psychotherapy, management in primary care, informal caring; Psychiatric labelling; Social history and history of health and care; Mental health inequalities
Institute for Social and Economic Research
Professor Emilia Del Bono
Professor, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
Professor Michaela Benzeval
Director of Understanding Society, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
Professor Birgitta Rabe
Professor, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
Dr Cara Booker
Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
Dr Ben Etheridge
Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics
Research interests:
Life-cycle consumption, saving and labour supply; Earnings/Income dynamics; Inequality: Supply and demand of workplace skills; Inequality: Belief heterogeneity and information acquisition; Household formation over the lifecycle; Inequality: The role of housing
Robin Vanner
Policy & Partnerships Manager, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
Essex Law School
Dr Richard Cornes
Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School
Research interests:
Constitutional & Administrative Law; Comparative Public Law; Psychoanalysis and Law; Human Rights, esp Freedom of Expression, Hate Speech and Religion; LGTB+ rights, in particular legal recognition of same-sex relationships and marriage equality; Comparative Judicial Branch Studies; Media, Communications and Top Courts; Law and Politics; European Law, esp judicial branch issues
Dr Karen Brennan
Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School
Research interests:
Criminal Law and Criminal Justice; Gender and Criminal Justice; Criminal Justice History
Dr Francis Rees
Lecturer, Essex Law School
Research interests:
Child Influencer Labour
Dr Samantha Davey
Lecturer, Essex Law School
School of Philosophical Historical and Interdisciplinary Studies
Professor Wayne Martin
Professor, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies
Research interests:
Philosophy of Psychiatry; Phenomenology (esp Hume, Husserl, Heidegger, Th Lipps, L&oslashgstrup); Kant and post-Kantian idealism (esp Fichte); The history and philosophy of logic; Philosophy and painting; Self-Consciousness; Autonomy and the Regulation of Care; Political Philosophy; Will, Agency and Contract
Dr Natasha Ruiz-Gomez
Senior Lecturer, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies
Research interests:
Art and science/medicine; Auguste Rodin's oeuvre; Nineteenth-century French sculpture; Architecture and urban planning in nineteenth-century Paris; Auguste Rodin and science; Jean-Martin Charcot and art; Objectivity and medical imagery; Medical portraiture; Nineteenth-century medical photography; Theories of degeneration and genius
School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Dr Katerina Bourazeri
Lecturer, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (CSEE)
Research interests:
Developing Serious Games for Promoting Sustainable Behaviour; Enhancing Mental Health through Immersive Experiences; Overcoming Body Dysmorphia with Immersive Virtual Reality; Improving Quality of Life for Parkinson's Patients with Virtual Reality
Dr Vito De Feo
Lecturer, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (CSEE)
Department of Government
Professor Paul Bou-Habib
Professor, Department of Government
Research interests:
contemporary theories of distributive justice; the just distribution of resources between age groups; the role of the concept of dignity in normative political theory
Professor Jason Glynos
Professor, Department of Government
Research interests:
political philosophy; Lacanian and post-Marxist discourse theory; philosophy and methodology of social science; post-structural approaches to political and policy studies; theories of democracy and ideology; grammars of freedom and equality in contemporary political discourse; cultures and discourses of the economy
