Role: Associate Researchers

Sarah is a Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research explores parent-child relationships and the psychological wellbeing of family members across family transitions (e.g., becoming a parent, separation or divorce) and diverse family forms (e.g., elective co-parents, those created through assisted reproductive technologies, LGBTQIA+ parent-headed families). She is a collaborator on ongoing international prospective longitudinal studies, uses multiple methods in her research and has advanced quantitative expertise. Her current ESRC-funded research is exploring children’s relationships with their parents, adjustment, and experiences of different post-separation child arrangements in England and Scotland. She completed her ESRC-funded doctoral and postdoctoral research at the Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge.

Dr Susan Imrie (she/her) is a developmental psychologist and has held lectureships at the University of Cambridge and UCL. Her research has focused on family functioning in new family forms, and in particular parent-child relationship quality, child development, and children’s perceptions of their families in families created using IVF and egg donation, surrogacy, and in families with trans parents. She has also worked on several projects on family estrangement. She is currently Head of Wellbeing at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, and alongside this role is working on a project examining the relations between the teaching and learning environment and student wellbeing and mental health. She uses quantitative and qualitative approaches in her research.

Dr Catherine (Kitty) Jones (she/her) is a lecturer in Developmental Psychopathology at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London. She completed her ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Cambridge, designing and conducting a study of primary caregiver father families. Her postdoctoral work at Cambridge and UCL focused on mixed- methods approaches to study parents and children in families formed through the use of assisted reproduction. Kitty continues to study diverse family forms, alongside conducting research on lived experience of menstrual distress.

Sophie is a Reader in Family Psychology at the University of Sussex. Sophie first completed a doctorate in social psychology and remains interested in the intersection of social and developmental theories in the study of non-normative families, including families formed through assisted reproduction. She has conducted some of the first studies of children and young people’s perspectives and experiences in families headed by single mothers by sperm donation; two-parent families via sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogacy; and trans parent families. Most recently, she led the Young Adults Study: www.youngadultsstudy.co.uk. Sophie’s research is primarily qualitative, with some studies adopting multi and mixed methods designs.