Dr Laura Havers

Profile

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Unit for Psychological Medicine in the Centre for Psychiatry and Mental Health working as part of the quantitative work package of the ATTUNE project. Within this project, I am investigating relations between youth adversity and mental health in adolescence through the lens of intersectionality, using secondary data.  

I completed my undergraduate and postgraduate studies in psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, and I defended my thesis in 2022. My PhD was focussed on the development of psychotic-like experiences and negative symptoms in adolescence and emerging adulthood. 

Prior to and throughout my undergraduate degree, I worked and volunteered with individuals experiencing mental health difficulties. This work and voluntary experience is imbedded in my motivation to conduct research in this area, where I am interested in measuring and modelling the development and presentation of individual differences in psychological and emotional processes. I am passionate about understanding and using quantitative analytic methods that both adequately address the research questions at hand, and that capture the psychological constructs being studied.  

Alongside my postdoctoral research, I conduct introductory-level workshops on structural equation modeling topics. These workshops are designed to be non-technical, with the aim of maximising understanding and practical application in the field of applied mental health research. I also run a quantitative methods discussion club and support group for ECR, and I mentor postgraduate students as part of a quantitative methods collective based in the USA. 

Research