PSYCHOMETRICS - Key Persons
Annalyn Ng has a passion for psychological research that is complemented by her expertise in statistics. While completing her MPhil degree at the Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, she worked with the Centre's clients to program cognitive tests for job recruitment, and to mine data for targeted advertising. After graduating, Annalyn joined the behavioural sciences team at Disney Research and collaborated on projects to examine the psychological profiles of consumers.
Annalyn currently works at Singapore's Ministry of Defence, where she analyses predictors of soldier performance. Results from her work help to determine commander selections and military job postings for annual cohorts of 15,000 conscripts.
In her free time, Annalyn participates in data mining and predictive analytics competitions, helping companies like Samsung and Yahoo! with their marketing strategies and recruitment decisions. The online crowdsourced analytics platform, CrowdANALYTIX, named Annalyn as one of their top data analysts.
Annalyn enjoys combining her statistical expertise with her commitment to educating others. She has conducted introductory courses for businesses and government agencies in Cambridge and Singapore, and maintains a blog on data analytics.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate in the Department of Experimental Psychology
Anji Wilson is a Research Associate in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. After obtaining a degree in Pathobiology at the University of Reading, followed by an MSc in Biological Anthropology at the University of Oxford, Anji joined the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, carrying out research with Professor Nick Mackintosh on cognitive development and associated school attainment, a topic in which she obtained her doctorate in 1989. The results provided the first clear data that differences between ethnic groups in the UK in educational attainment were in danger of becoming endemic, a finding with direct implications for educational policy in terms of equality of opportunity.
Between 1994 and 2000 Anji was with the Winnicott Research Unit in the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge, researching the efficacy of short-term, home-based counselling support for first time mothers and also looking at the impact of maternal post-natal depression on the development of children, as well as working with researchers from the Park Hospital for Sick Children in Oxford on a study into the experiences of young people with Down's Syndrome. She also initiated and worked in conjunction with the Cambridge Mediation Service (formerly The Cambridge Family and Divorce Centre) on a project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to evaluate school-based counselling support for children who had experienced parental separation or divorce.
In 2000 Anji joined the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, working with Professor Martin Richards, the then Director, on a qualitative, interview-based study investigating connections between concepts of family and kinship and those of inheritance and genetics in young people. This project, entitled 'Understanding inheritance: kinship connections and genetics' was funded by the Wellcome Trust. In 2004 she joined a research team, led by Dr Claire Hughes, investigating the predictors of success in the transition to school, where she co-ordinated and participated in school research visits. She has considerable experience in carrying out psychometric assessments with children, as well as in interviewing family members.
Anji joined the Psychometrics Centre in 2009 to lead a project for the standardisation of a new revision of one of the UK's most widely used diagnostic assessments used by Educational Psychologists and other professionals for the diagnosis of childrens' special educational needs throughout the primary and secondary education system. Her special interests include singing, painting and dancing, particularly the Russian Ballet.
Arielle Bonneville-Roussy is Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Education at Roehampton University, London. She is an accomplished musician as well as a psychologist, and her PhD, completed at The Psychometrics Centre in 2015, focused on psychometric assessment of non-verbal questionnaires in online situations.
During her PhD, Arielle has gained an expertise in applied structural equation modelling and latent variables modelling with very large databases. With Dr Gabriela Roman, she is currently in charge of the Structural Equation Modelling and Mplus courses given by The Psychometrics Centre.
Prior to her doctoral degree at the University of Cambridge, Arielle graduated in Music from the University of Montreal, and went on to achieve her M.Mus Masters in 2006 in Clarinet Performance. However her fascination with the underlying motivations and personal dynamics of the musician led her to follow up her distinguished musical career with a return to school, resulting in a BSc in Psychology from the University of Quebec in 2008, followed by an MSc in 2010. Her Masters research focussed on the influence of environmental and individual characteristics on expert performance.
Previously a researcher at McGill University, and also at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Arielle has wide experience of the application of psychometric tests in clinical settings. She currently holds Scholarships from the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Quebec Fund for Research on Society and Culture, and has been the recipient of many awards and prizes for her work.
In her role as a musician Arielle has previously been a tutor in Clarinet at Laval University. She played the Clarinet in the Cambridge University Music Society Orchestras.
Lavoie-Tremblay, M., Bonin, J.P., Lesage, A., Bonneville-Roussy, A., Lavigne, G., & Laroche, D. (2010). Contribution of the psychosocial work environment to psychological distress among health care professionals before and during a major organizational change. Health Care Manager, 29, 293-304. doi: 10.1097/HCM.0b013e3181fa022e
Emily Savage-McGlynn completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2011. Her doctoral dissertation investigated sex differences in general intelligence in the U.K. standardisation of the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM), using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques to assess the measurement invariance, differential item functioning (DIF), population heterogeneity, and latent mean differences. Using Mplus to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with the Raven's data is a novel way to assess this well-respected test of general intelligence. Her doctoral studies were supervised by Professor Melissa Hines and Professor John Rust, and are generously funded by the Cambridge Assessment Scholarship for Studies in Psychometrics.
Prior to beginning her studies at Cambridge, Emily completed her M.Sc. in Research in Psychology at Oxford University in 2006 examining the impact of preoccupied thinking in maternal post-natal depression on mother-infant interaction at 10-months of age with Professor Alan Stein. She also holds a M.Sc. in Developmental Psychology from University College London, a post-graduate certificate in Brief Therapy from the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada.
Prior to studying at Oxford University, Emily worked as a Bilingual Research Analyst at the Canadian offices of Pearson Assessment, the world's leading psychometric test publisher. During her time there, she was involved in the development of English-language versions of the WPPSI-III and the WISC-IV, as well as French-Canadian versions of the WISC-IV, WIAT-II, WPPSI-III, and WAIS-III. For each of these measures, she was involved in item development, design co-ordination, data sample recruitment, statistical analysis, manual writing and project management. Her role also involved test administration with children and adults, as well as running trainings on test administration of the Wechsler assessments.
Emily's language skills, familiarity with the range of Wechsler assessments, and technical ability with statistical modelling techniques fit perfectly with the skill set, experiences and focus of The Psychometric Centre.When not studying for her Ph.D., she is the proud mother of 2-year-old Brendan and wife to Kevin. In any remaining free time, Emily enjoys photography, travelling, and baking.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor in the Department of Pedagogical Sciences
Kate Xu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Pedagogical Sciences at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and was an Associate of The Psychometrics Centre while previously at the University of Cambridge. She is an applied statistician/epidemiologist, interested in methodological development of statistics applied in mental health, educational psychology, and ageing research. She works on time to event data from prospective population-based studies to identify how risk factors on the metabolic-cardiovascular pathway change with increasing age.
She also works on psychometric issues of behavioural measures in genetic association investigations, with focuses on development of reliable, robust phenotypes of cognition and mental health based on questionnaire and longitudinal cohort data, using latent variable techniques.
She has a strong interest in empirical applications of latent variable methods. Specific types of modelling techniques I use in my research include: structural equation modelling, measurement invariance assessment, latent growth curve modelling, latent state-trait modelling, multilevel modelling and missing data imputation.
Dr Myles-Jay Linton is a Psychologist and a Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow at the University of Bristol.
In 2012 Myles joined the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre as a Summer Research Intern, working on a project analysing predictors of life satisfaction within the myPersonality study.
In 2018 he earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Exeter Medical School. His work focussed on the measurement of wellbeing, and the links between our choices and preferences. Between 2017 and 2019 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, exploring the measurement of quality-of-life, healthcare decision-making, and mental health interventions. In 2019, Myles was awarded an Elizabeth Blackwell Institute Vice Chancellor's Fellowship, focussing his research on young people's mental health, suicide prevention and digital interventions. In 2022 Myles was awarded Innovate UK funding to explore the ethics and acceptability of using artificial intelligence to support young people's mental health within an online peer-support app.
Myrto is a social psychologist with a background in linguistics. Her research broadly concerns how beliefs and attitudes are formed and shaped from a socio-cognitive perspective. In 2017 she obtained a Phd from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Her dissertation examined the Truth-bias, the intrinsic tendency people have to believe things they are told (click here if you want to find out how truth-biased you are http://cescup.ulb.be/JudgeStephen/). After obtaining her PhD she moved to the University of Cambridge working on a project assessing the effect of sustainability information on investment decisions, a partnership between the Department of Psychology, Judge Business School and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Myrto is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, assessing the psycho-cognitive underpinnings of the truth-bias and studying Conspiracy Beliefs.
Job Titles:
- Researcher at the London Business School
Dr Paula Cruise was a Research Associate at the Psychometrics Centre within the (then) Faculty of Social and Political Sciences between 2007 and 2009 and a Visiting Lecturer within the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. As a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, she combines academic research with applied consultancy and experience in professional training and development. Paula's research adopts a socio-cognitive approach to applied assessment and focuses on the interaction between individual psychological processes (personality, attitudes and motivations), culture, team and leader effectiveness.
Paula has been a researcher at the London Business School working with Dr. Lisa Moynihan on team personality, composition and goal achievement and has had teaching positions at University College, London and at City University, London where, prior to joining The Psychometrics Centre at Cambridge gave lectures on the MSc in Organisational Psychology at City University, London. Whilst at Cambridge, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Criminology where she collaborated with Dr. Mandeep Dhami to investigate public and prisoner attitudes to prisoner disenfranchisement. Published in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, the research was the first to examine this growing global and legal issue from both the prisoner and public perspectives and identified significant differences in perceptions, motivations and consequences for voting behaviour and democracy.
Richard was a Research Associate in the Psychometrics Centre working on the Wikirate project, a European Commission 7FP project (2007-2013). He obtained a BSc in Psychology from the University of Abertay in 2006 and an Msc in Psychological Research methods from Dundee University in 2007, before working as a research assistant for one year in Dundee University. As a researcher in cognitive psychology Richard designed and ran experiments concerning face recognition and spatial-numerical associations (the SNARC effect).
Job Titles:
- Business Development Associate
Josephine Andresen was a Business Development Associate at the Centre in 2022-24. She supported a range of applied research projects and commercial initiatives. Josephine holds a MPhil in Management from the University of Cambridge, and a MSc in Organizational Psychology as well as a Psychology honours degree from the University of Groningen.
She is pursuing a PhD in Experimental Psychology at University College London, looking at how males and females are perceived when they are in a leadership position. She has previously worked as Experimental Lab Manager at the Judge Business School and in Corporate Social Responsibility at the Tata Group in India.
Josephine is passionate about applying science to real-world problems. During her time at the University of Groningen, she developed a peer learning scheme for undergraduates that could algorithmically match up students based on scientifically-proven variables. She is also an academically-certified coach for young professionals.
Kalifa Damani is currently a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge and Artist in Residence at The Psychometrics Centre. She completed her MPhil degree in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge in 2014. During the 2013-14 academic year sho played an active part in the Psychometrics Centre's actiities, not only as a psychometrician but also as our artist and communicator in residence. For examples of her work see here. She graduated with 1st Class honours in Psychology and Film Studies from the University of the West Indies at St Augustine, and is in receipt of a prestigious Scholarship from the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. Kalifa has been a University Tutor in Art and is also a freelance graphic artist, photographer and painter. In 2010 she was President and Founder of the University of the West Indies Arts Club.
Kalifa is passionate about finding opportunities and avenues through which psychological research can be applied to improving the lives and opportunities for children and youth (especially the disadvantaged) in order that they may improve their self-esteem, efficacy and achieve their full potential.
Ning Wang completed her MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge in 2011, having carried out her research project in The Psychometrics Centre. A psychology graduate of Peking University, in 2007 she joined the Laboratory of Clinical Psychology, guided by Professor Mingyi Qian, chairman of the 5th World Council for Psychotherapy. Ning's research has focussed on the moderating effects of empathy on the relationship between egocentrism and altruistic behaviour, combining questionnaire surveys with behavioural experiments to explore both trait and state empathy. Her practice in a psychiatric hospital has involved interviewing and the use of projective tests in a clinical context. Ning is currently reading for an MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge.
Ning Wang's interests are widespread. During the 29th Beijing Olympic Games she worked in 'the Nest' as a media operations volunteer (English language). She particularly enjoys voluntary work with a focus on infantile autism. In 2006, for example, she joined the Xining Children's Home in Qinghai Province, an institution that provides for children with learning and physical disabilities and autism, teaching maths to adopted pre-school children. Ning is widely travelled, visiting Singapore and Japan in 2008 as part of a government exchange programme and in 2009 participating in the 'Go to Africa' programme in Ghana, sponsored by BTP, Hong Kong University. Her hobbies include craft making and travelling.
Sabine Spindler apprenticed in The Psychometrics Centre at The University of Cambridge in 2010 while a student at the University of Trier where she is following the Psychology Diploma Program. As an Exchange Student, she spent the academic year 2008/2009 at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Social and Developmental Psychology working with Professor Michael E. Lamb. In 2010, Sabine returned to write her Diploma Thesis at The Psychometrics Centre. During this time she also developed her psychometric expertise in item response theory analyzing personality data collected through the Facebook application myPersonality.
Sabine's experience as a psychologist covers a broad range of clinical and business applications. Sabine has several years of experience as a Trainer for Into Schüleraustausch, applying social psychological insights to prepare future exchange students for their high school year abroad. As an intern with IBM Business Consulting in Munich she was able to acquire expertise in the areas of leadership, knowledge management and personnel selection. Her clinical experience includes carrying out group therapy for patients suffering from Personality Disorders or Depression and the application of psychometrics within diagnostic assessment, anamnestic interviews and stress research.
Sabine is a scholar of "Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes", the German National Academic Foundation who also funded her visits to Cambridge. She names theatre, photography and journalism among her interests. She has been for many years a leading member of the editorial team at Neue Universal, a student newspaper that won the award for best German Language student newspaper from the financial service provider MLP. The jury, which includes representatives from Welt am Sonntag, the Financial Times and der Spiegel commented on its audacity, diversity and clear structure. As well as German (her mother tongue) Sabine is fluent in English and is working on her language skills in Spanish, French and Russian.
Sinead Rooney was Administrator of The Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge between 2009 and 2012. Following her BSc in Biochemistry at Galway College, Ireland, in 1989, Sinead joined the New York Medical Center, working as a Research Technician on the production of DNA primers. In 1991 she took up a technical post in the Department of Medicine at Addenbrookes Hospital at the University of Cambridge, and in 1993 moved to the Department of Pathology in the same institution, During this time her work focussed on DNA extraction and sequencing, gene insertion into vectors, and cloning,
From 1996 to 1998 Sinead made a career change from medical academia to the business world, joining Talentmark as a researcher in recruitment consultancy, specialising in the pharmaceutical industry. But this proved to be a transition to here real interest, homeopathy. She obtained the Diploma in Homeopathy at the College of Practical Homeopathy in London in 2000, and continues to be associated with the College as a Lecturer and Examiner in anatomy, physiology and pathology, as well as running her own clinic at the Beechwood Practice in Cambridge.
Sinead now has an homeopathy practice in Cambridge.
Tanvi Chaturvedi is a psychometrician and business psychologist with several years experience of the application of psychometrics within employment settings. She completed her MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge in June 2011.
Having graduated with single honours in Psychology from the University of Delhi in 2005, Tanvi undertook a Diploma in Business Management at the Asia-Pacific Institute of Management, New Delhi, India, with a specialism in organizational behaviour and human resources. As part of her MBA project work she carried out an analysis of the relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction, and also completed a report for India Today on their Performance Magment System. She also developed expertise in Competency Mapping. Tanvi graduated with distinction in 2008 and was the recipient of the ‘highest grades award' and a Gold Medal from the Human Resources department for her project "Analysing the advertising strategy for Amul India"
Joining the Psychological Assessment Centre for Enhancement at the Institute she undertook a programme of training in psychological assessment in their psychometric laboratory, qualifying in several instruments such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), progressing to the role of trainer. She joined the Quadrangle Consulting Services in Gurgaon in January 2008 as a consultant.
Tanvi is also a dedicated dancer, having trained at the world-famous Shiamak Davar's Institute Performing Arts that has launched the careers of many Bollywood dancers. Her performance in ‘Winter Funk' received the highest accolade.