Alyssa is a post-doctoral researcher in the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh. She leads development, evaluation, and knowledge exchange for the Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) project, a teacher-delivered programme to introduce neurodiversity concepts to primary schools. Alyssa is an interdisciplinary researcher with a mixed background in psychology, education, human-computer interaction, and arts/design. Her varied research interests include neurodiversity in education, participatory design with children and educators, autism, school-based studies, HCI for children, and research ethics.

Previously, she was a researcher at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education, at the UCL Institute of Education. She completed her PhD in human-computer interaction at the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics, focusing on designing and evaluating technologies for pupils on the autism spectrum.