I graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in Human Psychology from Aston University in 1996 and a PhD from Keele University in 2002. I re-joined the School of Psychology at Keele University in September 2004 as a Teaching Fellow and Learning Support Tutor, became a lecturer in September 2005, a Senior Lecturer in 2011, and a Professor in 2018. My PhD, supervised by Prof Mike Boulton, focused on identifying the social skills problems that put children at risk of being bullied. Also, I developed and ran a Social Skills Training Programme for children bullied by their peers, and evaluated the effectiveness of this intervention. Following my PhD I worked as a Research Associate in the School of Social Relations on a project to evaluate the work of the NSPCC Schools Teams (2001-2003), and for one year I was a member of the research team based at the University of Birmingham responsible for the National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund.