I studied a BSc in Psychology at the University of York and stayed there to complete a PhD. My PhD was awarded in January 2009 and investigated the temporal dynamics of speech intelligibility mechanisms. This approach used vocoded speech manipulations in conjunction with auditory steady-state responses measured via MEG to investigate how salient information contained in a speech signal can be neurally encoded.

My early post-doctoral positions were joint across the Hull York Medical School and the York NeuroImaging Centre. During this time I worked to develop novel methodological applications for the analysis of oscillatory biomagnetic signals acquired by MEG and EEG. I was also responsible for facilitating research projects involving clinicians and patient populations. This role involved using functional imaging in MR and MEG to investigate clinically relevant diagnostic questions.

In 2014 In began a post-doctoral position at the University of Manchester, funded by the MRC. This was an ambitious study testing 200 people for a total of over 1500 hours to study the effects of “hidden hearing loss”, which is when there are profound changes to the physiology of the auditory system as a result of noise exposure but no change in the audiogram. In July 2018 I became a Lecturer in Audiology at the University of Manchester.

I am interested in the human auditory system and how speech signals are decomposed and represented neurally. My current interests involve studying the auditory brainstem in conjunction with learning standard audiological practices to investigate novel ways of quantifying an individuals hearing capabilities. 

My previous interests in speech processing and audition have covered speech vocoding methods, auditory steady-state responses to amplitude- and frequency-modulated sounds and devloping a time-domain apprach to describe the nature of amplitude modulations contained in speech. 

I’m interested in how speech is represented electrically within the brain, and how this representation is altered in those with a hearing loss. I also have interests in the impact of recreational noise exposure on hearing, understanding what cognitive resources speech tasks require, and developing new methods for studying auditory perception. I’m always open to new, smart questions which approach familiar problems from a novel perspective.

I have experience using and developing inverse modelling approaches in the field of MEG, such as dipole modelling and spatial filtering analyses. 

I have designed, analysed and interpreted studies using fMRI, MEG, EEG

I have extensive experience of using Python and Matlab for a range of different purposes.