KEYNOTES

Cathy Manning, University of Reading

After completing her BA in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, Cathy Manning obtained an MRes and  Phd in Psychology at the UCL Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) from 2010-2014.

 

At present, Cathy is a lecturer at the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences and lead researcher in the Centre for Autism at the University of Reading. Cathy’s research focuses on the development of visual perception in neurodivergent individuals during childhood. This led Cathy to found ‘Sensory Street’, a project which centers around the sensory processing difficulties experienced by individuals with autism, and how public spaces can be made more inclusive and predictable for them. Sensory street are currently collaborating with Autistica to develop adaptations and strategies to facilitate sensory inclusive spaces for autistic individuals.

Joni Holmes, University of East Anglia

Joni Holmes gained her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at Durham University in 2005. As a professor of psychology, Joni has been lecturing at the University of East Anglia since 2021.

 

In addition to her senior membership of the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Joni was Head of the ‘Centre for Attention Learning and Memory’ (CALM) at the University of Cambridge from 2017-2021. CALM is a research clinic that utilizes the transdiagnostic approach to advance our understanding of the cognitive, neural, and genetic features of atypical development. Contributing to the change in how we traditionally think about neurodevelopmental disorders in terms of classification systems, CALMs data-based approaches recognize the importance of shifting towards a child-centered approach that considers individual cognitive and neural characteristics.