Dr Katherine S. Young is an NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre Lecturer based in the Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London. Her background is in neuroscience, experimental and clinical psychology. Her translational research focuses on using neuroscientific techniques (e.g., neuroimaging, psychophysiology, cognitive testing) to better understand the development and maintenance of anxiety and depression, as well as to improve our mechanistic understanding of psychological treatments for these mental health problems. Her current work focuses on depression (particularly symptoms of ‘anhedonia’) in adolescents.  

Dr Young completed her both her BA in Psychology and Physiology and DPhil in Psychiatry at Oxford University. Her doctoral research focused on examining behavioural and neural responses to infant social cues, and how these processes may become disrupted in postnatal depression. She moved to the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2014 for a postdoctoral position with Prof. Michelle Craske. Here, her work took a broader focus, examining neural correlates of anxiety and depression as well as the effects psychological treatments have on brain functioning. She returned to the UK in 2018 to take up a BRC Lectureship based at the SGDP Centre. 

Research interests:

• Anxiety and depression  
• Neuroimaging (fMRI and M/EEG) 
• Behavioural/cognitive testing 
• Peripheral psychophysiology 
• Mechanisms of psychological interventions 
• Adolescence 

Teaching:

Abnormal Psychology; Research methods in Infants and Children 

Expertise and Public Engagement:

Dr Young has been previously been involved with public engagement with science, contributing to articles in various newspapers about the biological basis of parenting (e.g., New York Times, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Times), and during her doctoral studies contributed to a Channel 4 TV programme called ‘Bedtime Live’. She is currently a consultant for a BBC TV drama under development about the future of technology and mental health in adolescents.