Senior Research Officer
BA (Hons) Psychology, MPsych (Clinical), PhD
Jess is a Senior Research Officer and Clinical Psychology Registrar.
Her research interests are in mental health in childhood and adolescence, maternal mental health, and nutrition and lifestyle in mothers and young infants. Her major research projects to date have included an investigation of the influence of parental age on mental health problems in children and adolescents, and an investigation of key predictors of mental health outcomes in a cohort of Western Australian children. She completed Master of Psychology (Clinical) and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the University of Western Australia in 2015. In 2011, she was named as an inaugural member of the ISSBD Jacobs Foundation Early Career Scholar Fellows. Jessica currently works at the Telethon Kids Institute developing a comprehensive lifestyle intervention program for women and their infants postpartum.
In her work as a psychologist, Jess has a particular interest in working with personality disorders and mental health after traumatic life events.
Jess has presented on her work at fifteen national and international conferences, and has had her research work published in several high-level journals including Fertility and Sterility and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Her research has been highlighted with a press release by the American Psychological Association and she has appeared as a guest expert on Channel Nine. Jess' work has been recognised with several research grants and prizes including the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology Heniz Berendes International Travel Award, and she was awarded a UWA Student Guild Student Choice Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014.
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Publications
January 2016
Older maternal age is associated with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms in young adult female offspring
Older maternal age is associated with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms in young adult females
Published research Academic Biostatistics Depression and Anxiety Human Development and Community WellbeingJune 2015Older maternal age and child behavioral and cognitive outcomes: A review of the literature.
Although the physical consequences for offspring in utero and in the prenatal period are well known, the psychologic consequences of older motherhood for...
Published research Depression and Anxiety ORIGINSNovember 2014The association between prenatal environment and children’s mental health trajectories from 2 to 14 years
This study aimed to elucidate how an adverse prenatal environment, as defined by the presence of a number of known prenatal risk factors, would influence...
Published research Human Development and Community Wellbeing Autism ResearchMarch 2014Low maternal serum vitamin D during pregnancy and the risk for postpartum depression symptoms
Pregnancy is a time of vulnerability for vitamin D insufficiency, and there is an emerging literature associating low levels of 25(OH)-vitamin D with...
Published research Autism Research Inflammation Human Immunology Cardiometabolic SunhealthJanuary 2014Does late childbearing increase the risk for behavioural problems in children? a longitudinal cohort study
This study aimed to examine the relationship between advanced parental age and behavioural outcomes in offspring in a longitudinal cohort of children in WA.
Published research Academic Biostatistics Early Childhood Development Human Development and Community Wellbeing