Shannon Bristow is a research associate, deputy manager of the NIHR Bioresource Maudsley team and part-time PhD student here at King's.

After completing a BSc in Psychology with First Class Honours at Brunel University, Shannon went on to undertake a PGCE in Psychology at University College London, Institute of Education. After qualifying as a teacher, she spent some years leading the psychology and sociology departments at a West London academy school, and teaching these subjects across GCSE and A Level. Shannon undertook her Master’s in the Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health, at King’s College London and completed this in 2019, juggling both full-time teaching and being a student herself. After this, Shannon began assisting with the lecturing and delivery of the PGCE Psychology course at UCL, where she trained previously, until moving to King’s College London in 2020.

Here at King’s, Shannon is a core investigator on the RAMP study, and works closely with Professor Thalia Eley and Professor Breen to coordinate GLAD, EDGI and TEDS studies. Over the past year, she has been working on strategies to address the lack of research participant diversity within psychological research. This work has involved learning about the barriers to participation through the RAMP study, and trialling new methods to overcome these. Shannon intends to continue this work with ongoing KCL projects in the hopes of achieving research which is diverse and equitable for all. She is currently an EDI Theme Representative for the NIHR Maudsley BRC.

Research interests

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Microbiome
• Self-managed behaviours
• Diversity and inclusion
• Record linkage