Director and lead researchers
Paul is LEGO Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at Cambridge University, UK. He leads a research team investigating the role of play in children’s early development. He also works as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the UK National Health Service. Paul's research is focussed on early child development and he has a particular interest in how we give children the best start in life, including the prevention of emotional and behavioural difficulties. Much of this work has explored the role of fathers, as well as mothers, in children’s lives and development.
Jenny is a Lecturer in Psychology and Education and her work at PEDAL focuses on investigating the role of play in children’s social development, and the rigorous development of meaningful and reliable ways to measure play. Jenny is the lead researcher on the PEDAL research strand that examines 'What is play?'.
PEDAL Researchers
Elian’s research interests focus on social and emotional development in early childhood. Elian completed her PhD at the University of Sydney, Australia, examining the longitudinal association between children’s emotion management, socio-cognitive understanding and peer relationships. Following her PhD, Elian went on to do post-doctoral research at the Evidence Based Practice Unit at University College London and the Anna Freud Centre, exploring children and young people’s emotional well-being and mental health difficulties in the school context. She is now a Research Associate at PEDAL working on a longitudinal project examining the antecedents and outcomes of play in early childhood.
Elizabeth works as a research associate between PEDAL and the LEGO Foundation. Her research interests focus on play-based educational interventions for children and cognitive development. Elizabeth completed her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit on the impact of cognitive enhancements such as working memory training and non-invasive brain stimulation. Elizabeth is a keen traveller and has spent time working in South Korea as a primary school teacher and completed a JSPS Fellowship at Kyoto University in Japan. Prior to joining PEDAL Elizabeth worked at the Manchester Institute of Education as a postdoctoral researcher investigating the effectiveness of a whole school intervention aimed at improving children’s academic and social outcomes.
Christine works with Paul and Eloise on the 'Play in Early Life' research area.
Dave’s research interests revolve around how play relates to learning, particularly in infancy and early childhood. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2017, for which he studied mothers’ play interactions with their 1- to 2-year-old infants. From August 2017 to August 2018 he was part of Roberta Golinkoff’s Child’s Play, Learning & Development Lab at the University of Delaware. In addition to his research, he has acted as a consultant on play and learning for The LEGO Foundation and Skylark Learning Ltd., and given research advice or briefings to the US Military Operations Research Society and the UK Houses of Parliament.
Eloise works with Paul and Christine on 'Play in Early Life'. Her current research interest lies in the effectiveness of a video-feedback parenting programme (VIPP) to increase caregiver sensitivity with different populations. She is a trial co-ordinator and clinical supervisor on three different studies testing the programme’s effectiveness with foster carers and foster children, parents with personality disorders and teachers in primary schools.
PEDAL Administration
Helen is responsible for the smooth running of the research centre, including finance, governance and communications. She provides professional support to the team and liaises with our partners and supporters. She has worked in higher education, local government and charities.
Research Assistants
Catherine is a Research Assistant working across the PEDAL team to support grant writing and coordination.
Dee is a Research Assistant working with Sara Baker within the Stepping Stones in Science research area of PEDAL. Her current work involves the development of teaching materials designed to help teachers build children’s autonomy through playful, child-led approaches to early Science teaching within the current UK education system. Dee’s research interests include bi/multilingual children’s development, content and language integrated Learning and teaching (CLIL), as well as teacher cognition and the features of effective teacher professional development. Prior to joining PEDAL, Dee worked at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, as a postdoctoral researcher investigating the effectiveness of a classroom intervention aimed at supporting the development of children’s multilingual identity in order to enhance motivation and inclusion in UK schools.
PhD Students
Stephen Bayley is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on education for adaptability and how children in low-income settings develop skills like creativity and problem solving. He holds a Masters in International Education and Development from the University of Sussex and previously worked as an Education Adviser and Project Manager on programmes in Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania. Stephen initially qualified and practised as a lawyer and has worked with NGOs and community initiatives across Africa and Latin America.
Janina is a PhD student in the Centre for Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL). Her research interest concerns young children’s self-regulation development in classroom contexts. Janina wants to better understand whether specific pedagogical approaches are more beneficial for children’s self-regulation development. Furthermore, she is interested in how children’s self-regulation can be measured in the classroom in an ecologically valid way.
Emily is a PhD student working with Jenny Gibson and Paul Ramchandani. Her work uses data from the ChiRPP study to examine children's communication with their peers during play, exploring how children make decisions together about the ongoing play, and to consider how this communication may be related to characteristics of the children.
Read Emily's latest piece for the 'Z to A of Play' series here.
Kelsey is a PhD student supervised by Prof Paul Ramchandani and Dr. Christine O’Farrelly. Having worked in hospitals both in the US and the UK and with a background in psychology, her research interests are at the intersection of children’s physical and mental health. During her doctoral studies, she will explore the role of play in healthcare, with a specific interest in the impact of play for children with chronic or severe illness.
Lenka is a PhD candidate supervised by Dr. Jenny Gibson. She is exploring social play, friendships, and wellbeing of children with primary difficulties in language development. Her study design is a series of case studies and Lenka collects data via multiple methods: observations, video recordings of children playing with playmobil, school mapping, one-on-one meetings using art-informed methods. Promoting participatory research, Lenka aims to give active voice to children in research about their social play and social lives.
Krishna is a PhD student supervised by Paul Ramchandani. Her research will be examining parent-child playfulness, and its importance in child outcomes. She will also be exploring parent-child relationships through play in India.
A former primary school teacher herself, Soizic is interested in helping teachers foster a love of learning in children. Her work is split into two main areas: working directly with teachers as part of the Stepping Stones project to help them make changes to their practice, and looking at how we can measure children’s inner motivation, the engine of both play and learning. Before joining the world of education, she wanted to be an entomologist – if you like random facts about ants, she’s the person to ask – and worked in conservation to try and save the planet. She decided working with children was the best solution.
Emma is a research assistant working with Dr Jenny Gibson within the ‘Social Play: Social Lives’ strand. Her current work involves conducting a scoping review of play-based interventions for social communication outcomes for autistic children (aged 2-8 years).
Vicky is a PhD student working with Dr Jenny Gibson from PEDAL and Dr Ben Alcott from REAL. Her PhD project looks at the relation between communication disorders and psychosocial adversities, and how play can be an effective intervention to promote children’s social and emotional skills. Her research interests cut across psychology and sociology of education. She is particularly interested in how different social, economic and psychological factors intertwine with each other in promoting children’s educational achievement and life outcomes in both developed and developing contexts.
