Postgraduate researchers

Julie Bailey

Following a career as a teacher and leader in secondary schools, Julie has researched barriers to inclusion for autistic and other neurodivergent students in secondary school and higher education. Alongside her research, Julie is a Specialist Learning Mentor for the University of Cambridge and was the founding Chair of Governors for The Cavendish School. 

PhD supervisor: Prof Sara Baker. PhD advisor: Prof Jenny Gibson


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Mélanie Gréaux 

Mélanie is passionate about advancing health equity for persons with disabilities, especially through building more diverse, inclusive, and representative health care workforces. Her PhD project investigated issues of speech and language therapy workforce diversity under a Transformative Research paradigm. Mélanie is a trained speech and language therapist and works as a consultant for the World Health Organization’s disability programme.

PhD supervisors: Prof Jenny Gibson and Prof Napoleon Katsos

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Belinda Henderson

Belinda Henderson, born and raised in Bermuda, is currently pursuing her PhD with a dedicated focus on understanding and dismantling the barriers to Belonging experienced by many autistic children and young people while affirming its integral link to identity. With a diverse professional background spanning the music industry and psychology, she brings a wealth of experience to her academic pursuits. 

PhD supervisor: Prof Jenny Gibson. PhD advisor Prof Paul Ramchandani

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Stephanie Nowack

Stephanie is passionate about exploring what it means to have play at the heart of education, particularly in Global South contexts. Her research focuses on how play can find expressions across neurodivergent and geo-political dimensions. As a LEGO Foundation and Cambridge Trust Scholar, her PhD project explores educators’ experiences and practices around a contextually grounded South African pedagogy of play for autistic learners. Stephanie is a South African trained research psychologist. 

PhD supervisors: Prof Jenny Gibson; Prof Nidhi Singal. PhD advisor: Prof Paul Ramchandani  

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Emma Pritchard-Rowe

Emma is passionate about mental health and wellbeing. She is particularly interested in neurodiversity-affirmative approaches and how these relate to play and wellbeing. Emma is also interested in how the voices of individuals with lived experience can be centred in research. Her PhD focused on neurodiversity-informed understandings and diagnostic assessments of autism and autistic play.

PhD supervisor: Prof Jenny Gibson. PhD advisors: Drs Elizabeth Byrne and Christine O’Farrelly 

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Kate Rigby

Yuhe Wang

Yuhe [pronunciation: Yǔ-Hé/You-Her] is an MPhil Education student (Psychology and Education). Her current research interest lies in students’ mental health and wellbeing, and her MPhil project focuses on risk and protective factors that may influence the mental health and wellbeing of international students enrolled in UK universities. Through her MPhil project, she aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge in the area of mental wellbeing in higher education. Before joining in Cambridge, Yuhe obtained a BSc degree in Psychology at University College London (UCL).

Emily Williams

Following completion of her BA in Education, Psychology and Learning and Primary PGCE at the University of Cambridge, Emily has been a primary school teacher for the last two years. She is currently an MPhil student in Psychology and Education, exploring late-diagnosed autistic women’s experiences of mainstream secondary school.