Catherine is an ESRC LISS-DTP funded PhD candidate (2021-2025), supervised by Professor Emily Simonoff, Professor Francesca Happé CBE and Dr Silia Vitoratou.

Catherine’s research aims to support the recognition of anxiety in children and adolescents with intellectual disability whose spoken language impairments impede their ability to describe their fears, worries or concerns.

Formerly a private equity investor in the US, Canada and the UK, Catherine changed careers in response to her community-based work with parents of children with special education needs and disabilities and her lived experience with non-speaking autism, ADHD, intellectual disability and a rare genetic condition.

Catherine holds a BA cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University; MA from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; MBA from INSEAD; and MSc in Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology with distinction from King’s College London.

Research Interests:

• Intellectual disability
• Autism
• ADHD
• Mental health
• Anxiety

Expertise and Public Engagement:

Catherine has spoken at conferences and presented evidence to regulatory and governmental bodies about caring for and educating children with disabilities, including:

• Presentation to for the London Paediatric Dysphagia CEN on "Feeding Risks and Interventions for Children with Craniofacial Abnormalities: A Parent’s Perspective”
• Presented written and oral evidence to the Care Quality Commission
• Presented oral evidence to Hackney Local Authority on educational funding for Special Education Needs and Disability

In her prior career, Catherine facilitated the plenary session discussion of an international conference of over 1,000 delegates in Paris, was interviewed by journalists from the Financial Times and other publications, authored training materials published by the World Bank’s International Monetary Fund and ran training workshops for multinational groups of participants.