MRC Epidemiology UnitPhD Student
Prevention of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders in High Risk Groups
Current work and interests
Laura is an MRC-funded PhD student supervised by Dr Amy Ahern and Professor Simon Griffin. She is interested in the development and refinement of scalable and cost-effective interventions to improve long-term weight loss outcomes. Her PhD will explore the role of appetitive traits and eating behaviours in the weight loss and weight loss maintenance trajectory.
Background and experience
Laura graduated Cum Laude with a bachelor’s in Psychology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. During her studies, she developed a particular interest in translating research into policy and practice, leading her to complete a specialisation in Applied Psychology as part of her degree. Laura then pursued a master’s in Health Psychology at University College London (UCL) where she was included in the dean’s list for outstanding students in 2019/20. Her dissertation explored the potential use of the Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) in predicting overweight and obesity in children in an Individual Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis. During this time, she further completed an internship at the Behavioural Insights Unit (then part of Public Health England).
After graduating from her masters, Laura worked as an external systematic reviewer for the University of Oxford. She also spent time at Newcastle University where she was involved in a project investigating physical activity in children under the age of five. Laura also completed internships in the private sector, where she worked in a digital health start-up, a consultancy and a design agency.
Publications and online profiles
Selected publications
- Hartmann-Boyce J, Theodoulou A, Farley A, Hajek P, Lycett, D et al. (2021). Interventions for preventing weight gain after smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (10).