With a background in both psychopharmacology and psychiatric research methods, I was awarded my PhD on the cognitive neuropsychiatry of schizotypy and first episode psychosis in Professor David Linden’s lab from Cardiff University in February 2018, focusing on predictive processing and source monitoring frameworks. I began my first postdoctoral position in 2017 at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London working on chronotherapeutics for the rapid treatment of depression, before taking up a post of Research Fellow at the Institute of Mental Health, University of Birmingham in 2019. I joined the Department of Psychology as a Lecturer in Mental Health at the University of York in April 2022.

My research interests mainly focus on schizophrenia-spectrum psychoses. My research experiences span from psychopharmacology to cognitive neuropsychiatry to phenomenology, and I am heavily involved with the International Consortium for Hallucination Research. I am a strong proponent of inter- and multidisciplinary approaches and value the importance of multiple lines of scientific inquiry in mental health research.

Rosa is a joint funded Priestley Birmingham - Melbourne PhD researcher at the Institute for Mental Health and Orygen Youth Health.  Her research adopts cross- and inter-disciplinary approaches (including methods from phenomenology, linguistics and neuropsychology) to the investigation of delusional experiences and meanings in psychosis. Rosa investigates the experience and meaning of delusions from multiple disciplinary perspectives, using in-depth phenomenologically informed interviews and qualitative methodologies. 

Rosa is a Consultant Psychiatrist in a specialist Early Intervention in Psychosis Service in the West Midlands and a Principal Investigator, involved in ongoing multicentre clinical trials across the UK. Before joining the University of Birmingham, Rosa completed her speciality training in General Adult Psychiatry and obtained her specialist diploma in Psychiatry with academic distinction (Diploma di Specialista in Psychiatria summa cum laude) at the University of Verona. Prior to this, Rosa received her MBChB with distinction (Laurea summa cum laude in Medicina e Chirurgia) at the University of Padua. She trained in Phenomenological Psychopathology at the Scuola di Psicoterapia Fenomenologico-Dinamica in Florence. 

I am an HCPC Registered Clinical Psychologist, having completed my doctorate at Newcastle University in 2016. Since then I have specialised in providing psychological treatments for people with psychosis across a range of NHS settings, including Early Intervention in Psychosis services, Community Mental Health Teams, and Inpatient Wards. This has highlighted the need to develop more effective treatments, which has driven my commitment to remain involved in research throughout my clinical work.

I have a range of experience working across a translational research pathway; from theory development to co-ordinating large scale multisite RCT’s testing innovative interventions for people with psychosis within the NHS (gameChange – Oxford University, Managing Unusual Sensory Experiences in First Episode Psychosis (MUSE FEP, CNTW).

I am currently completing an NIHR Doctoral Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowship, where my research focuses on visual hallucinations in psychosis. The aim of my fellowship is to develop our understanding and treatments of these. Throughout all of my work, I am passionate about embedding people with lived experience at the heart of research to ensure we are asking meaningful questions and developing effective and engaging treatments which will improve peoples' lives. I am currently lead researcher on VISION-QUEST: a questionnaire study exploring visions in psychosis.

I also continue to work clinically in Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW), where I focus on increasing access and implementation of psychological treatments in psychosis services.