Anja’s background and research training are at the interface of psychology and biology. Anja completed her PhD in Psychoneuroimmunology at the The Institute of Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis (INIMS) at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) in 2014, where her main focus was to explore Comorbid depression in multiple sclerosis using Biobehavioral approaches to diagnosis and treatment. She has published several research articles and wrote a book chapter on antenatal effects of distress.

Following her PostDoc at the Health Psychology department at King’s developing and evaluating a self-management intervention for people living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, she began her independent career as a Health Psychology Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). During this time, Anja has focused on the area of Barrett’s Oesophagus, HIV, Multiple Sclerosis and collaborated with clinical and experimental departments across the UK and abroad, including various NHS trusts, Neuroradiology, Neurology, Sports Medicine, Neurophysiology, Obstetrics / Gynecology, and Molecular Neurobiology.

Since 2016 Anja held a position as Teaching Fellow/Content Advisor on the King’s College London (KCL) Psychology and Neuroscience distance learning MSc course since before joining the team as a Senior Teaching Fellow in 2021 and taking over Programme Leadership in September 2023.

For the past 10 years Anja has mentored and supervised students ranging from BSc to MSc and PhD level, working closely with student disability services. In her view, keys to success in this context are partnership, equity, accountability and ownership. She is passionate about empowering students to evaluate their own progress, giving them confidence in their ability, and identifying and addressing needs for support.

Research Interests

Anja runs The Collaborative Library (TCL) in addition to her programme lead role at KCL. TCL is an open access repository of lay summaries of open access articles, which leverages university assessment processes.

Her main career interest is to utilise her passion for interdisciplinary research, teaching and mentoring to attract, excite and train the next generation of scientists and professionals as well as contribute to knowledge equity.

 Teaching:

• Applied Neuroscience
• Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health
• Affective Disorders

Expertise and Public Engagement

As part of her work in open access and accessibility of science, Anja has built an international network with key stakeholders from UKRN, UNESCO, the Knowledge Equity Network, People’s practice, TALON and a wide range of HEIs, professional bodies, publishing bodies and charities globally.

Anja has a track record of public speaking in the area of science communication and has delivered podcasts and webinars for UKRI, UKRN, UKCORR and similar.

The Collaborative Library has been nominated for and won several innovation, education and open access resource awards.