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Staff Profile

Dr Beth Little

Research Associate

Background

Current roles and responsibilities

  • 2023-present: Post-doctoral Research Associate in the CNNP lab, School of Computing, Newcastle University.
  • 2024-present: Associate Fellow, Faculty of Medical Sciences Graduate School, Newcastle University. 

Past roles and responsibilities

  • 2018-2023: Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar in Behaviour Informatics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University. 
  • 2018-2023: Postgraduate demonstrator, School of Psychology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University.
  • 2016-2018: Research Assistant, Institute of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Neuropsychology of mood disorders, Newcastle University, 2023.
  • MSc Cognitive Neuropsychology (research), cum laude, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, 2016.
  • MA(Hons) Psychology (with Honours of the First Class), University of Glasgow, 2012.

Research environment activities

  • 2023-present: junior editorial board member, Bipolar Disorders: The Journal.
  • 2020-present: peer reviewer for several journals (e.g., Psychiatry Research, JINS, and JCEN; see Web of Science profile). 
  • 2016-present: member of NU Women, Newcastle University. 
  • 2016-2018: Member of the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion committee, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University. 
  • 2023: presented at 'North-East Women in Engineering and Computing' event, Newcastle University. 

Funding and awards

  • 2023: EPSRC AI in Health grant awarded to Dr Yujiang Wang, '[Fractal AI] Leveraging universal fractal geometry to develop new AI for neuroimaging', named investigator, Newcastle University (£600k). 
  • 2023: Career Development Post-Submission Bursary awardee, Newcastle University Doctoral College (£4,417). 
  • 2021: Newcastle University JobsOC Summer Internship Scheme co-awardee, PI: Dr Peter Gallagher (£3,550). 
  • 2021: Faculty of Medical Sciences Graduate School Travel Funding awardee, Newcastle University (conference registration).
  • 2016: Erasmus+ Internship grant awardee for research internship at Durham University (€2,700). 
  • 2014: VU Fellowship Programme scholarship awardee for MSc at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (€10,000).

Non-research roles

  • 2012-2014: Graduate/HR assistant, Corporate Training and Development Unit, Dumfries & Galloway Council, Scotland. Led a team to co-ordinate corporate development programmes. 
  • Voluntary roles: Girls Network mentor (2018-2020), PACC Durham classroom assistant and exam invigilator (2016); Alzheimer Scotland (2010-2011); ChildLine counsellor (2010-2011).

Links

Research

Areas of expertise

Computational neuropsychology, neurocognition, cognitive assessment, neuroimaging, brain-behaviour research

Current research

The majority of my work focuses on developing methods in computational neuropsychology, with an aim to investigate cognitive functions and their neural correlates in health and disease. I leverage normative modelling approaches and novel measures of cortical morphology to measure brain structure and detect deviations from the healthy trajectory. I use multivariate approaches to explore complex associations between cognitive dysfunction and brain abnormalities in disease. 

Research Interests

  • Human cognition and neurocognitive impairment in disease
  • Brain-behaviour associations
  • Cognitive and neuropsychological assessment
  • Cortical morphology in health and disease
  • Mood disorders and psychiatric disorders
  • Ageing and dementia
  • Neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodivergence

Skills

  • Computational modelling of cognitive data
  • Multivariate analysis
  • Normative modelling 
  • MRI pre-processing (e.g. FreeSurfer)
  • Programming in R (some Matlab and unix)
  • High performance computing systems and parallel processing
  • Systematic review and meta-analysis
  • Psychophysiological measurements, e.g., eye-tracking and skin conductance
  • Cognitive testing and neuropsychological assessment
Teaching

Current teaching and supervision

I supervise PhD students in the School of Computing, and I review PhD projects as an Associate Fellow panel member in the Faculty of Medical Sciences. I also recruit and supervise placement students in the CNNP lab, e.g., Psychology Undergraduate placement year research interns. 

Previous teaching and supervision

2018-2023: Postgraduate Demonstrator, School of Psychology, Newcastle University. Modules included:

  • PSY2022 Methods in Psychology 2A
  • PSY2009 Methods in Psychology 2B
  • PSY2004 Individual Differences
  • PSY1012 Introduction to Psychology

2016-2022: I co-supervised several Undergraduate and Masters project students in the Faculty of Medical Sciences (Institute of Neuroscience 2016-2018, Translational and Clinical Research Institute 2018-2022).

Publications