Overview

My work explores diversifying consciousness for flourishing.

I investigate how perceptions of Normality trigger mechanisms with layered impact on individual and collective potential for transformation.

My PhD research explores the the pluripotency of psychedelic-induced psychological transformations (Economic and Social Research Council funded project with Celia Morgan and Gosia Gocłowska; 2021-2024).

I am interested in mechanisms that unlock mental plasticity (trauma - growth) and their role in shaping the subjective nature of individual and shared 'Reality'.

I look at the personal, inter-personal and group dynamics underlying Normality and evaluations of those that challenge it.

The meaning of diversity for the individual, deeper inter-personal connection and socio-psychological inclusion, become drivers to my interest in Cognitive, Social, and Developmental Psychology, and their intersecting applications for mental health and social policy.

I adopt a philosophical approach as a psychologist with the guiding principle that "the past informs and constrains us through the probable; it does not have to restrain us, from the possible."

At Exeter's Psychology department I have worked with Professor Rutland’s Developmental Intergroup Processes lab, looking at children’s and adolescents’ social-moral reasoning and the role norms play across development.

With the Bystander project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), we looked at children’s and adolescents’ bystander reactions to, and evaluations of, the social exclusion of immigrant peers. I focussed on the way children and adolescents reason about their evaluations of the exclusion and those who challenge it, through the lens of the Social Reasoning Development (SRD) model.

Broadly, my work centres and circles around:

- Untangling the cognitive mechanisms behind prejudice, perspective change, and open-mindedness 

- Identifying links that bring us closer to connection with 'the other', and within

- Creating transformation through identity-transcending empowerment

I integrate creative writing, philosophical questioning, and psychological research.

My philosophical-psychological novel, 'Το Πιθανό' (Arket, 2014) was published in Greek by Gavrielides books. The story of an amnesiac psychiatric patient who gets lost in dream worlds becomes a call for the reader to explore how our construction of reality and sense of self rely on the narratives that make up our memory.

The novel plays on the fundamental conflation of probability with possibility, highlighting the liberating power of the realisation that "our perception of the probable directs our possible and limits our ability to reach our potential".

I joined the University of Exeter in September 2019, moving from London where I was working as a Research Consultant for a Human Resources consultancy, exploring the role of technology partnerships for employee wellbeing and flourishing company cultures.

Qualifications

Associate Fellow Higher Education Academy (AFHEA ASPIRE Associate Fellowship)

MSc Psychology of Education (UCL Institute of Education, Distinction)

Ptychion (Degree) in Philosophy, Pedagogy & Psychology (Psychology pathway; University of Ioannina, Greece)

Research group links

• Social, Environmental and Organisational