Julia studied Psychology and Clinical Neuroscience for her BSc and MSc. She first joined the FANS Department as a PhD student in 2018. In her PhD work, she studied the neurobiological, neuropsychological, and neurochemical underpinnings of antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy. After completing the PhD, Julia moved to the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at UCL, where she was also based before her PhD, to continue her research as a postdoctoral research fellow. There, she coordinated several studies investigating mentalization and social cognition using neuroimaging and computational modelling methods in individuals with borderline and antisocial personality disorder, complex PTSD, and mood disorders. Julia returned to the FANS department in 2025 as a Lecturer in Psychology. She is co-module lead for the Research Methods and Statistics module on the MSc Forensic Mental Health and MSc Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences while also continuing her research work, focusing on the neurobiology of personality disorders and antisocial behaviour.  

Research Interests

• Personality disorder
• Antisocial behaviour
• Neuroimaging
• Mentalization
• Social Cognition

Expertise and Public Engagement

Development of "Breaking the Barriers", an effort to improve the relationship between individuals with offending historys and academics. The goal is to create a network that will help to facilitate involvement of people with lived experience in research settings. For early work on this, see this article: https://www.maudsleybrc.nihr.ac.uk/posts/2023/april/breaking-the-barriers-between-offenders-and-academia/.