Katherine N Thompson, PhD

Hello!

I’m Katie, a Research Fellow in Population Mental Health based at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, University College London (UCL) working as part of the fantastic Bridging Divides team.

I committed to open, diverse, and accessible science.

Working group memberships:

  • Loneliness Working Group
  • Responsible Genetics Collective

Alum:


Research timeline

2026 – Present

Research Fellow, University College London (UCL)

Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) – mentored by Dario Moreno Agostino

Researching gender inequalities in population mental health: mapping indicators of sexism within UK longitudinal cohorts, co-producing research with young people, and using causal inference to estimate the impact of sexism on depression and anxiety.

2024 – 2026

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Purdue University

Department of Sociology – mentored by Robbee Wedow and Erin Dunn

Developed pipelines for a data hub housing longitudinal cohorts including Add Health, WLS, HRS, UKB, MIDUS, and ELSA. Led a project using innovative mixed models to examine how systems contribute to depression symptoms, and a project using causal inference to test whether social connection mitigates disparities in depression symptoms.

2020 – 2023

PhD, Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry, King’s College London

Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, – Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study (E-Risk), mentored by Louise Arseneault and Tim Matthews

Led three projects applying longitudinal methods to understand the link between social isolation and mental health problems across development, developing expertise in structural equation modelling, growth mixture modelling, cross-lagged panel models, and twin models.

2019 – 2020

Research Assistant, King’s College London

NIHR BioResource Centre Maudsley – GLAD Study, EDGI, and COPING Study, mentored by Gerome Breen

Managed NHS participant recruitment and trained around 200 NHS Trusts and services on recruitment strategies, and developed large-scale data management pipelines (N > 20,000) across multiple studies.

2016 – 2018

Research Assistant, King’s College London

Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience – Early Development in Tuberous Sclerosis Study, mentored by Charlotte Tye

Conducted behavioural assessments in infants across the UK and in the Birkbeck Baby Lab, including eye tracking, the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, ADOS, and EEG.