Livia Tomova – Principal Investigator
Dr. Tomova is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Psychology based at the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC). She is also a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow. Her work focuses on studying how experiences of social disconnection (for example, isolation and loneliness) impact cognition and brain function during adolescent development. She is also interested in how digital social interactions impact young people’s behaviour, cognition and brain function. Prior to joining the faculty at Cardiff University, she was a Henslow Research Fellow working in the Blakemore Lab at Cambridge University. Before that, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Saxelab at MIT. She earned her PhD in Psychology in the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit at University of Vienna. Outside of her life as an academic, she enjoys exploring the beaches in Wales with her husband and daughter, yoga and reading sci-fi books.
Dr Tomova’s publications can be found on Google Scholar.
Email: tomoval@cardiff.ac.uk
Bluesky: @livia-tomova.bsky.social
Thaïs Marques – PhD student
Thaïs is a PhD student in the Developing Social Minds Lab, based at the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Her research interests
include adolescent brain development, brain functioning, and cognition, and their interplay with social media. Thaïs’ current research applies experimental methods to explore the effects of specific social media features on teenagers’ cognition and brain function, in relation to teens’ increased reward sensitivity. Holding a Psychology BA (Toulouse University, France) and a Cognitive Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging MSc (Bordeaux University, France), Thaïs developed a passion for science communication that she pursues as part of her PhD research and in her free time as an active member of the CUBRIC’s “Brain Games”. Outside of the lab, like any French person, she loves eating and trying out new restaurants around Cardiff. She also spends a lot of her free time reading and crafting/doodling.
Email: MarquesTC@cardiff.ac.uk
Linkedin: Thaïs Marquès
Marta Barbieri – PhD student
Marta is a PhD student in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. She’s fascinated by the psychological and neural effects of loneliness during adolescence, a crucial stage of emotional and brain development. Her current project combines self-report measures and neuroimaging to investigate how adolescents experience loneliness, and how acute episodes of social isolation affect brain function. By first exploring adolescents’ own definitions and perceptions of loneliness, she grounds the interpretation of MRI data in their lived experience. Before starting her PhD, Marta completed a BA in Genomics at the University of Bologna and a MA in Neurobiology at the University of Pavia. Her interest in neuroimaging led her to the Cognitive Affective Neuroscience Lab at the Donders Institute (Nijmegen, NL), where she undertook a 9-month internship investigating how stress hormones influence emotional memory. In her free time, Marta enjoys spending time outdoors reading in the sun, camping by the sea, snowboarding, or surfing. She also loves baking for special occasions and experimenting with hair dye you might catch her with a new color a little too often!
Email: barbierim1@cardiff.ac.uk
Linkedin: Marta Barbieri
Amy Orwin – PhD student
Amy is a PhD student at Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), working under the supervision of Professor Derek Jones and Dr Livia Tomova on the Wellcome Trust Discovery Award titled ‘Deep Microstructural Phenotyping of the Developing Brain’. Her research explores how measure of brain microstructure can be used to predict specific aspects of adolescent development, such as age, pubertal status and cognition. Amy is particularly passionate about understanding individual differences in the development of the adolescent brain, and she is keen to explore explanations for this variation.
Amy holds a BSc in Psychology with Professional Placement from Cardiff University and completed her placement year at CUBRIC, assisting research on cognitive and cortical connectivity differences in young people with high-risk copy number variants for schizophrenia. Outside of research, she enjoys cooking, exploring new places, and staying active through dancing and running.
Email: OrwinAL@cardiff.ac.uk
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-orwin
Jules Street – Research Assistant
Jules is a Research Assistant at Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC). His research interests are related to the statistical methods which underpin psychology research, namely multivariate regression, causal inference/discovery and time series analysis. Before joining CUBRIC, Jules completed a BSc in Statistics at University College London followed by an MSc in Statistics at Imperial College London, where his thesis proposed a novel hypothesis test for detecting the presence and direction of predictive causality between time series variables and applying it to British weather data. At CUBRIC, Jules is currently working on using contemporary statistical techniques to map and test causal links between problematic social media use and social disconnection in adolescents. Outside of research, Jules can often be found jogging around the parks of Cardiff, hiking in the surrounding countryside or playing board and card games at local cafés.
Lucas Roberts – Undergraduate Research Assistant
Lucas is a third-year BSc Psychology student at Cardiff University, currently completing his placement year as a Research Assistant for Marta Barbieri, to help understand the neurocognitive mechanism differences in adolescents when isolated. His research interests fall towards the clinical and behavioural side of psychology, especially in areas such as OCD, GAD and GDP, along with the structural and neuronal differences in those individuals. Lucas has also worked alongside charities that helped SEN children participate in a variety of sports like Football and Rugby. Outside of research, you would most likely find Lucas on either a Golf course, Football pitch, Surfing, or spending weekends away from Wales!
Ira Ovalekar – Research Assistant
Ira is an MSc student in Children’s Psychological Conditions at Cardiff University. Her research interests focus on how social stress and adversity affect brain development and adolescent wellbeing. Ira completed her undergraduate placement year at the Yale Social Cognitive Development Lab, where she explored how emotion stimuli and fairness judgements influence children’s resource distribution behaviour. She has also supported research projects in safety learning, interpersonal trauma and parent-child emotion regulation at the Yale Clinical Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab. She completed her Undergraduate Final Year Project (senior thesis) with the Tiny to Tots Research Group, exploring how parental anxiety and physiology influence interaction patterns of parent-child dyads during doll play. Outside of research, Ira can be found drawing and painting, working on Theatre Production and Design teams or going on cafe trips with friends.
Alumni
Leon Scott – Undergraduate Research Assistant
Noor Arwan – MSc student & Research Assistant
