DIORA: Dynamic Interplay of Online Risk and Resilience in Adolescence

Edmund Sonuga-Barke is Professor of Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. Inspired by his own childhood experiences his research focuses on understanding neuro-developmental disorders and their mental health consequences across the life span. To this end, he employs basic developmental science approaches to study the pathogenesis of such conditions, their underlying genetic and environmental risk and resilience sources and their mediating brain mechanisms. Professor Sonuga-Barke was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2016), a Fellow of the British Academy (2018), amongst the ‘most influential scientific minds’ in psychology and psychiatry by Clarivate (2018) and an Honorary Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark (2019).

Sonia Livingstone DPhil (Oxon), FBA, FBPS, FAcSS, FRSA, OBE is a professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has published 20 books including “The Class: Living and Learning in the Digital Age” and Parenting for a Digital Future (July 2020). She directs the projects “Children’s Data and Privacy Online,” “Global Kids Online” (with UNICEF) and “Parenting for a Digital Future”, and she is Deputy Director of the UKRI-funded “Nurture Network.” Since founding the 33 country EU Kids Online network, Sonia has advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe, OECD and ITU.

Sonia tweets @Livingstone_S

Dr Jake Bourgaize is a Research Associate at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and a Senior Research Officer at the Centre for Brain Science, The University of Essex. Jake’s research focuses on how individuals perceive food given various factors (such as how much the individual likes the food they are looking at, or if they have an eating disorder). This also includes how an individual’s brain activity changes in line with their eating behaviours. His other research interests include student motivation while completing classwork and digital software solutions that can assist in the day-to-day lives of those living with visual field loss.

Dr Kasia Kostyrka-Allchorne is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. Kasia’s research broadly concerns risks and opportunities created by access to digital technology within the context of family and child and adolescent mental health. This includes developing evidence-based parenting interventions that use mobile phone technology to provide low-cost and scalable support for parents of young children both in the community and within children’s health services. She is also interested in examining the mechanisms that underpin the associations between childhood and adolescent mental health difficulties and digital engagement.

Kasia tweets @kasiakostyrka

Dr Mariya Stoilova holds a postdoctoral research position at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). With a strong focus on multi-method evidence generation and cross-national comparative analyses, her work focuses on the intersection of child rights and digital technology use, well-being and family support, and intimate life, citizenship and social inequalities.

Mariya tweets @Mariya_Stoilova

Eliz Azeri is a BSc Psychology undergraduate student at King’s College London, on a work placement year before her last year at university. Eliz is particularly interested in the myriad of factors affecting young peoples’ mental health, especially within the fast-paced climate of newly emerging digital technologies. She is also interested in how the combined effects of different environmental factors and genetic vulnerabilities influences young peoples’ mental health to varying degrees.