Dr Simpson Wong

Profile

I am a Lecturer in Mental Health and a Co-director of the MSc Mental Health: Cultural Psychology and Psychiatry, based at the Unit of Psychological Medicine in the Centre of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Wolfson Institute for Population Health.

I completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. After working as a mental health worker for the Salvation Army, I did an MPhil study investigating the cognitive deficits of developmental dyslexia. During my DPhil study at the University of Oxford, I conducted a longitudinal twin study, examining the roles of genes and environment on language and cognitive development. In the last decade, I completed 28 theoretical and applied projects covering a range of areas, including behavioural and molecular genetics, mindfulness, virtual reality, comic/graphic novel reading, bilingualism, physical health, etc. In particular, I am interested in studying the cognitive and social development in children with special educational needs, such as ADHD, Autism, Developmental Language Disorder, and Dyslexia. 

More recently, I have obtained a Master of Counselling (Monash) and a CertTESOL (Trinity) and have been applying my knowledge and skills to improve mental health in schools and the community.

Postgraduate Teaching

I am the Co-director of the MSc Mental Health: Cultural Psychology and Psychiatry. I also teach on the MSc Mental Health: Psychological Therapies. 

Research

Research Interests:

• Behavioural and molecular genetics
• Mindfulness
• Virtual reality
• comic/graphic novel reading
• bi-/mulit-lingualism
• Physical health, sport and exercise psychology

I am currently a Co-PI for a multidisciplinary project titled “Multimodal approaches to testing and prediction in early academic achievement: Chinese, English, and mathematics”.

Publications