After two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the department, in March 2021 I have joined Cardiff University as a Senior Lecturer, based at the Wolfson Centre for Young People's Mental Health and the DECIPHer Centre (Centre for Development, Evaluation, Complexity and Implementation in Public Health Improvement).Â
My research focuses on issues related to youth mental health and violence affecting young people, and how families and schools can enable young people to thrive. In particular, I am interested in exploring how programmes and policies operate in practice, and have recently joined the Board of Directors of the Global Implementation Society.
I completed my PhD at the Violence Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, focusing on the implementation of the parenting programme Sinovuyo Teen within a randomised controlled trial in South Africa. Sinovuyo Teen is a part of the Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) Initiative. PLH is a collaboration between the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and academics to provide evidence-based non-commercialised child violence prevention programmes for LMICs. The PLH programmes are currently being scaled up in over 20 countries across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. I am currently working with the PLH team and implementation partners on designing approaches to studying programme delivery and effects at scale (Parenting for Lifelong Health Scale-Up of Parenting Evaluation Research Study).
I have also been working with Professor Lucie Cluver, Dr. Elona Toska, and the Young Carers research group on two cohort studies - Mzantsi Wakho (http://www.youngcarers.org.za/youthpulse) and HEY BABY (https://www.spi.ox.ac.uk/hey-baby-0) - that focus on adolescent health, HIV, and adolescent parenthood, both conducted in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
Previously, I worked at RAND Europe, setting up and conducting evaluations of school-based programmes, and at the University of Cambridge, looking at risk factor for violence among young people in LMICs. I also hold degrees from the University of Oxford (MPhil in Evidence Based Social Intervention, with distinction) and the American University in Bulgaria (BA in Political Science and International Relations; Journalism and Mass Communications).
