Dr Laura Katus

Interests

My main research interest lies in understanding how the early environment shapes the developing brain. I am particularly interested in how early adversity, as is frequently experienced by children in low- and middle-income countries, affects their developmental outcomes. I am dedicated to expand our knowledge on what child development looks like in non-WEIRD (western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic) settings across the world. My PhD in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London examined infant neurodevelopment in context of poverty-related risk in a cohort in The Gambia. I then joined the Centre for Family Research as an ESRC postdoctoral fellow to work with Professor Claire Hughes. I am collaborating with several projects including the Evidence for Better Lives Study (vrc.crim.cam.ac.uk/vrcresearch/EBLS) and the Brain Imaging for Global Health project (globalfnirs.org/the-bright-project) and the Ready or Not project (cfr.cam.ac.uk/Ready-or-Not).

Research Focus

Equipment

Cross-sectional and cohort studies

Electroencephalography (EEG)

functional near infrared spectroscopy