I am very excited to have joined the lovely Sussex DETERMIND research team in October 2022 and have the chance work on this incredibly important study. Having had family members affected by dementia, I am very interested in understanding what may determine people’s quality of life and experiences with dementia, and ultimately how these might be improved. I believe it is imperative that we understand and address inequalities in dementia care, and I am eager to work with participants to get their personal experiences heard.
Having previously worked in a customer experience setting, I decided to pursue my passion for psychology and mental health and completed an MSc in Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex earlier this year, where my dissertation focused on mental health in students. During my master’s degree, my interest in dementia research developed further, learning about factors that may affect quality of life in dementia. This experience spurred me on to pursue the opportunity to work in dementia research, and the DETERMIND study felt like a perfect fit for my personal and academic interests!
I am honoured to have the opportunity to work on this study and hear the experiences of our participants, which should inform future dementia policy and hopefully make a real difference in people’s lives. Looking to the future, I hope to continue to contribute to health research, using my experiences and skills from working on DETERMIND to develop my own PhD project that could also make a difference to people’s mental and physical health. In the meantime, I look forward to meeting more of our lovely participants and hearing their stories over a nice cup of tea!…
