Profile
Emma James
My CV
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Education:
I went to my local secondary school, Sir Bernard Lovell, on the outskirts of Bristol. I stayed there for my A Levels too, although sometimes we shared lessons with other local schools.
I studied Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. I then completed a Masters degree in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and PhD in Psychology, both at the University of York.
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Qualifications:
GCSEs: Science (double), Maths, English, English Literature, German, Psychology, Media Studies, Music, Performing Arts (BTEC Diploma) //
A Levels: Biology, Psychology, English Language, English Literature //
BA Experimental Psychology (University of Oxford) //
MSc Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (University of York) //
PhD Psychology (University of York) -
Work History:
During my GCSEs and A Levels, I worked at my local garden centre at weekends.
I didn’t have a main job during my time at university degree, but did odd bits of work during the holidays. This included some outreach work with the university, some bar shifts, and some admin work for the NHS. One summer, I was lucky enough to get an internship at the Wellcome Trust. I spent a couple of months living in London and learning about science communication, it was awesome!
After my undergraduate degree, I spent one year working as a Research Associate at Lancaster University. This helped me to build my confidence and learn more about the research world before starting my PhD.
I finished my PhD a year ago, and have worked as a researcher on two different projects since.
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Current Job:
Research Fellow in Psychology. This means that I have some time to work on my own research projects – I have one year to finish up existing projects and think about new directions!
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About Me:
York-based Bristolian trying to learn about how people learn.
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I’m originally from Bristol, but I now live in York. Before I moved here, I also lived in Oxford and in Lancaster – I love getting to know different parts of the country. I like York because it often smells like chocolate.
When I’m not at work, I can usually be found reading, running and chatting with my running group, or baking. I’m famous for my chocolate brownies!
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I’m interested in finding out about how we learn things. Most of my research has looked at how we learn new words, and what helps us to remember them. In a typical experiment, I will teach people some new words and test their memory for them. We see how well they remember them straight after learning and later on. Sometimes we look at changes overnight, because our brains do some important work on our memories while we are sleeping. Sometimes we test memory up to a month later, to see what we remember for the longer term.One way to understand learning is to look at what makes things easier or harder to learn. One way we have looked at this is by teaching words that are more or less like words we already know. We can then see which ones people remember better.Another way to understand word learning is to look at differences between people. I look at how word learning is different in children who find reading difficult. Some children finding reading comprehension hard, and we want to find out why so that we can help them.My current project uses a word learning app to see whether we learn better at different times of day.
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My Typical Day:
A typical day might include visiting a school, so that children can show me what they can learn and remember. Back in the office, I work on analysing the data so that we can start to understand what the results mean. I might make these into a presentation for my colleagues, so that they can give me feedback on my work.
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One of the things I love about my job is that there is no “typical day”!
If I’m collecting data for a new project, I might spend a lot of my time away from the office. I might travel out to a school and spend the day running activities there. I typically take a laptop for running learning and memory tasks, but also some booklets of activities that help us to understand more about our participants (e.g., their reading ability, or the words they know). When looking at the role of sleep in learning, sometimes I visit children in their home before bedtime and run the activities there.
When I’m not collecting data with children, I spend the day in the office. I share my office with 1-2 other researchers, so I never get lonely! Sometimes I run experiments online, so I can do so from the comfort of my own desk! Otherwise, I might be reading about other people’s research, and going to talks or reading groups to learn about broader topics. I might be analysing the data that I have collected, and working out what the results mean. At the moment, I’m really enjoying improving my coding skills for data analysis — I didn’t have any formal education in programming, but it’s so satisfying to make things work!
I am also lucky that my department is very sociable. I sometimes meet friends for lunch, and meet with other junior researchers for coffee and cake on a Friday afternoon.
A few times a year, I travel away from York to attend conferences. These are a great opportunity to meet lots of other scientists, discuss ideas, and give presentations on your recent research. It’s also a great chance to see different parts of the world (when not in lockdown!) – I’ve been to Italy, Hungary, The Netherlands, and the USA.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Smiley, enthusiastic, stubborn!
What did you want to be after you left school?
I wanted to do something in psychology but I wasn't sure what - I quite liked the idea of health psychology because it seemed like it would be science-y and not therapy-y!
Were you ever in trouble at school?
I once got told off for smiling, apparently you're not supposed to be happy in maths.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Frank Turner
What's your favourite food?
Salted dark chocolate
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
1) To eventually have a permanent job, in a place that also works for my partner // 2) For my raspberry plants to grow me lots of raspberries // 3) To be able to see my pals again soon!
Tell us a joke.
What did the cheese say when it looked in the mirror? Hallooou-miii!!
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