Aja Murray

Professor

  • Psychology
  • School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Contact details

Address

Street

Room F16, Psychology Building

City
7 George Square, Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9JZ

Biography

Background

I joined the Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh as a Lecturer in 2018. My research focuses on developmental aspects of mental health, especially ADHD, internalising problems,  and their co-occurrence. A second area of focus is on quantitative methodology, especially longitudinal, ecological momentary assessment, and measurement burst methodologies. Current projects include the Mental Health in the Moment (MHIM) study of adolescent mental health, the MHIM-ADHD study of mental health in adolescent ADHD, the DigiCAT project focused on making counterfactual analysis more accessible, and the development of a digital health intervention for emotion dysregulation in ADHD.

Prior to joining the department, I was a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge where I researched  developmental trajectories of mental health issues and their co-occurrence. I also previously worked as a Research Associate in the Violence Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. There I worked on developmental trajectories of ADHD symptoms and conduct problems in the Zurich Project on Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood (z-proso) and later on the Evidence for Better Lives Study.  

 

 

Qualifications

B.Sc. Psychology - University of Edinburgh (2011)

M.Sc. Psychology - University of Edinburgh (2012)

Ph.D. Psychology - University of Edinburgh (2016)

Postgraduate teaching

I  teach the latent variable modeling section of Multivariate Statistics and Methodology with R

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Current PhD students supervised

Alex Crocker (primary)

Sumeiyah Koya (primary)

Menchie Leung (co-supervisor)

Xuefei Li (primary)

Past PhD students supervised

Abby Pooley (co-supervisor)

Zhuoni Xiao (primary)

Janell Kwok (co-supervisor)

Xinxin Zhu (primary)

Yi Yang (primary)

Tong Xie (visiting)

Yongtian Cheng (co-supervisor)

Christina Thurston (co-supervisor)

Lydia Speyer (co-supervisor)

Anna Hall (co-supervisor)

Chad Lance Hemady (co-supervisor)

Aimee Neaverson (University of Cambridge; co-supervisor)

Yulia Shenderovich (University of Cambridge; PhD advisor)

Research summary

My primary research interests relate to mental health phenotypes and their co-occurrence from a developmental perspective. I have a particular interest in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and in the developmental period of adolescence. I use a range of research methods, including longitudinal and ecological momentary assessment designs.

 

Current project grants

- Developing a digital health intervention for emotion dysregulation in ADHD (PI; Medical Research Council)
- Decades-to-Minutes -D2M (PI; Levehulme Trust)
- Mental health in the Moment - MHIM (PI; Wellcome Trust)
- MHIM-ADHD (PI; Medical Research Foundation)
- The Scottish Student Mental Health Research Network (ScotSMART) (co-I; RSE)
- CHILDs study (co-I; ESRC)
- Effects of prenatal maternal infections on developmental outcomes in children with typical development, autism spectrum disorders and
learning disability (co-I; Bailey Thomas Grant)

Past project grants

- Wellcome Trust Mental Health Data Prize (PI; Wellcome Trust)
- Loneliness in the digital age (co-I; MRC)- Addressing the adverse impacts of domestic violence during pregnancy (PI; Wolfson British Academy Fellowship)
- Dynamic predictors of and corrections for attrition in Understanding Society (PI; Understanding Society Survey Fellowship)
- Identifying risk and protective factors to help support student mental health (PI; SMaRteN Research Grant)
- A Delphi survey to define research priorities for a birth cohort study in eight low- and middle- income countries (PI; SFA ODA Global Challenges)
- Evidence for Better Lives- Impact (co-I; ESRC Impact Acceleration Grant)
- Violence against pregnant women: A dataset review (PI; Cambridge Humanities Research Grant)
- Identifying reliable change using cognitive tests in ageing and dementias research (co-I; Dementias Platform UK Discovery Award)
- Enhancing early child development in low- and middle- income countries (PI; British Academy Small Research Grant)
- Evidence for Better Lives- Data Innovation (co-I; Botnar Foundation Grant)

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