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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.

Funding and awards

  • 2024: International Society for Bipolar Disorders Samuel Gershon Junior Investigator Award winner.
  • 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).

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, 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. 

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

Cognitive neuropsychology, computational neuropsychology, neuroimaging, brain-behaviour research

Current research

The majority of my work focuses on developing methods in cognitive neuropsychology, with an aim to investigate cognitive functions and their neural correlates in clinical disorders. 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 computational 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 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