Mrs Anna Dearman Research Student, University of Essex
- ad21432@essex.ac.uk
- Telephone
- 4280
- Office
- 2N2.5B.01
I am a PhD student at ISER, in the Soc-B Centre for Doctoral Training.
In 2020, after fifteen years working in laboratories, I completed a master’s in bioinformatics and have since completed a two-year post at ISER as a Senior Research Officer in the biomarker team, where my work focused on data analyses and sharing for Understanding Society biological datasets.
During the first year of my studentship I developed new skills in sociology, psychology, neuroscience and statistics through a range of projects, courses, conferences and self-directed research. I also developed an inter-disciplinary 10,000-word thesis proposal.
Supervision:
- Professor Leonard Schalkwyk, School of Life Sciences
- Professor Meena Kumari, ISER
- Dr Pascal Vrtička, Department of Psychology
- Dr Jamie Moore, ISER
Thesis title: “Bio-social Pathways to Poor Mental Health in the UK Population: Using Blood Samples to Index Neurobiological Factors”
Research interests: Longitudinal mental health outcomes, resilience, risk and protective factors, genetics, epigenetics, proteomics
Thesis description: Poor mental health can occur after stressful life events. Our ability to remain resilient may be influenced by the gene-environment interaction (GxE) which takes place during brain development and maturation in childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, epigenetic and proteomic biomarkers measured in the blood may hold clues as to how resilient we are at a given moment, by their ability to measure neurobiological factors. This thesis aims to integrate genetic, epigenetic and proteomic biomarkers, along with measures of stressful life events, to understand how these interact on the pathway to poor mental health and resilience.