Dr. Kaili Rimfeld, Group Director
Kaili is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Psychology at Royal Holloway University of London. With expertise in developmental psychology, she focuses on individual differences in learning abilities and psychopathology. Following her Psychology degree, she completed her MSc in Developmental Sciences at Birkbeck College and embarked on her PhD at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King's College London.Supervised by Professor Robert Plomin, her PhD research was funded by the Medical Research Council and centred on the causes and correlates of individual differences in academic achievement. Kaili has published research employing quantitative genetic methodology, including twin design and DNA-based methods, to enhance our understanding of individual differences in educational achievement at the end of compulsory education and beyond.
Kaili's current work aims to get to the heart of the association between early educational experiences and adverse life outcomes using advanced statistical genetic methods that aid in the identification of specific risk factors (school environment, school type, educational outcomes, parental/teacher support) that predict outcomes during childhood and later in life while controlling for genetic confounding. The work will build upon her research to date in understanding individual differences in educational outcomes and their cognitive and non-cognitive correlates. She will study educational environments, such as school types and school-related stress and anxiety, and how they relate to children's genetic propensities and ultimately lead to different life outcomes using advanced statistical methods. She aims to clarify the developmental trajectories of wellbeing and its associations with school-related stress and anxiety. These analyses will greatly increase understanding of the development of mental health problems in the context of academic environments. Knowing individual-specific genetic predispositions and understanding how certain environmental factors may dampen or amplify genetic predictions will improve our understanding of the development of mental health problems and contribute to our knowledge of how to best intervene to prevent emotional problems during childhood and adulthood.
Rebecca Ferdinand, PhD Student (RHUL)
Rebecca is a PhD student in psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. After completing a BSc in psychology at Durham University, Rebecca spent ten years working in communications for several education-related charities, before completing an MSc in Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology at King’s College London. Rebecca started her PhD, supervised by Dr Kaili Rimfeld, Professor Dawn Watling and Professor Robert Plomin, in September 2023. She is interested in how individuals’ educational experiences impact their mental health and other future outcomes.
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Maddie Briggs, Trainee Clinical Psychologist (RHUL)
Maddie is a Trainee Clinical Psychologist completing her doctorate course at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has previously completed a BSc in Psychology with Early Childhood Studies, and an MSc in Psychology. Maddie's doctoral thesis will be exploring the longitudinal associations between school experiences in childhood, and psychotic-like experiences in emerging adulthood using the Twins Early Developmental Study data. Maddie is supervised by Dr. Kaili Rimfeld.
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Agnieszka Gidziela, PhD Student (Queen Mary’s)
Agnieszka is a PhD student in Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. After completing an undergraduate degree in BSc Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, Agnieszka started her MSc course in Genes, Environment and Development in Psychology and Psychiatry at King’s College London. Agnieszka started her PhD at Queen Mary University of London, supervised by Dr Margherita Malanchini, Dr Kaili Rimfeld and Professor Robert Plomin. Agnieszka’s BSc and MSc dissertations focused on investigating individual differences in behavioural traits from genetic and genomic perspectives, which she continues to explore during the PhD programme. Agnieszka’s research explores the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders, their co-occurrence, and their association with behaviour problems during childhood and adolescence.
Quan Zhou, PhD Student (Queen Mary’s)
Quan is a PhD student in Psychology at the School of Biological and Behavioural Science, Queen Mary University of London. Before starting his PhD in October 2021, Quan completed an MSc in Psychology and Education at the University of Sheffield in 2020. His PhD, founded by the Chinese Scholarship Council Fellowship and supervised by Dr. Margherita Malanchini, Prof. Michael Pluess, and Dr. Kaili Rimfeld, focuses on investigating gene-environment interplay in the development of education related noncognitive skills.
Francesca Procopio, PhD Student (KCL)
Francesca completed her BSc in Psychology at Queen Mary University of London and after a couple of years away from academia, she conducted an MSc in Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London. Her MSc thesis investigated the influence of specialist genes on mathematical, language, and reading ability in 12-year-old twins. Francesca's PhD project, supervised by Professor Robert Plomin, Dr. Kaili Rimfeld, and Dr. Margherita Malanchini, extends upon her MSc work and uses both genetic and genomic approaches to investigate the genetic specificity of cognitive traits independent from the influence of generalist genes.
Engin Kesser, PhD Student (KCL)
Engin is an ESRC-funded PhD student at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) Centre, King’s College London. Before starting her PhD, Engin worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Cambridge on a project looking at the neuropsychological mechanisms of checking behaviour in patients with OCD and schizophrenia. Engin then completed the MSc Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology at the SGDP, King’s College London. Her MSc thesis investigated the shared genetic liability between childhood obsessive-compulsive behaviour and psychotic experiences in adulthood. Engin’s PhD project is supervised by Prof Robert Plomin, Dr Kaili Rimfeld and Dr Margherita Malanchini and uses genetic and genomic methods to investigate psychopathology and its development.
