For the last 30 years, Professor Francesca Happé's primary research focus has been autism. Her work has explores the nature of social understanding in neurotypical development and ‘mentalising’ difficulties in autism. Francesca is also actively engaged in studies of abilities and assets in autism, and their relation to detail-focused cognitive style. Some of her most recent work focuses on mental health on the autism spectrum, and under-researched subgroups including women and the elderly. Francesca's research methods have spanned cognitive experiments, functional neuroimaging, exploration of acquired brain lesions, and behaviour genetic approaches.

She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences, past-President of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR; 2013-2015), and has received the British Psychological Society Spearman Medal and President’s Award, the Experimental Psychology Society Prize and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, as well as a CBE for services to the study of autism.

Francesca is the co-author/editor of recent books including: Autism: A New Introduction to Psychological Theory and Debate (with Sue Fletcher-Watson), Girls and Autism: Educational, Family and Personal Perspectives (with Barry Carpenter and Jo Egerton), and Learning From Autistic Teachers: How to be a Neurodiversity-Inclusive School (with Rebecca Wood and colleagues).

Research interests

• Autism
• Social cognition
• Configural-featural processing and individual differences
• Acquired brain injury/stroke and social/emotional difficulties
• Design of novel socio-cognitive tasks and measures

Teaching

Francesca teaches autism-related topics across a variety of courses including BSc Psychology, BSc Neuroscience, MSc Genes, Environment and Development in Psychology and Psychiatry (GED-PP), and MSc Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology (DEV-PP).

Expertise and public engagement

• Subject of The Life Scientific (01/09/2020), BBC Radio 4
• Television appearances including BBC QED, Open University, and Horizon. Radio interviews for, e.g. World Service, BBC, ABC.
• Subject of a Channel 4 documentary in the 4Learning ‘Living Science’ series and accompanying information for schools
• Articles for The Daily Telegraph (science section), Observer, Independent, La Repubblica and New Scientist
• On-line opinion pieces in Guardian and LiveScience
• Invited book reviews/opinion pieces for Science and Times Literary Supplement
• The Brain and the Mind film and debate (2013)
• Delivered King’s Rosalind Franklin Lecture 2014 at Hay Literary Festival
• Royal Society ‘Science Stories’ short film on Identity with Karl Friston for 350th anniversary of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
• Co-Founder (with Barry Carpenter CBE and Rona Tutt OBE) of the National Forum for neuroscience and Special Education, under the auspices of the national Association of Head Teachers (NAHT)
• Part of the Mental Health & Justice Wellcome Trust Strategic Award network
• Part of eLIXIR, Early Lifecourse data Cross-Linkage in Research partnership