The CoDE Lab Team
Dr. Margherita Malanchini, Lab Director
Dr. Margherita Malanchini is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. After graduating in Psychology from Goldsmiths University of London and obtaining her MSc in Developmental Sciences from Birkbeck College, Margherita started her PhD at Goldsmiths University of London. Her PhD research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, focused on the non-cognitive side of educational achievement, investigating how individual differences in motivation and anxiety contribute to differences in school achievement over development. After completing her PhD, Margherita worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London, and at the University of Texas at Austin.
Margherita is the Director of CoDE Lab and she is also the founder and director of an ongoing longitudinal study: Multi-cohort Investigation into Learning and Educational Success (MILES). Margherita collaborates closely with several longitudinal and genetically informative studies and has worked on several collaborative projects aimed at developing innovative applications to support online data collection as well as ‘gamified’ batteries of cognitive tests.
The goal of Margherita's research is to provide knowledge that can inform developmental interventions, ultimately allowing children and young people to achieve their full potential.
Agnieszka Gidziela, PhD student
Agnieszka is a PhD student in Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. After completing an undergraduate degree in BSc Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, Agnieszka started her MSc course in Genes, Environment and Development in Psychology and Psychiatry at King’s College London. After obtaining the master’s degree, Agnieszka joined CoDE Lab in October 2020 to start her PhD, supervised by Dr Margherita Malanchini, Dr Kaili Rimfeld and Professor Robert Plomin. Agnieszka’s BSc and MSc dissertations focused on investigating individual differences in behavioural traits from genetic and genomic perspectives, which she continues to explore during her PhD work, with a particular focus on behavioural problems during childhood and adolescence.
Ziye Wang, PhD student
Ziye is an ESRC-funded PhD student in Psychology at Queen Mary University of London supervised by Dr. Margherita Malanchini (QMUL), Professor Robert Plomin (KCL), and Dr. Andrea Allegrini (UCL). After obtaining his BSc in Psychology and Biology from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Ziye completed the MSc in Genes, Environment and Development in Psychology and Psychiatry course at King’s College London. In October 2021, Ziye joined CoDE Lab to start his PhD. He is broadly interested in the genetic and environmental influences underlying individual differences in cognitive ability and educational outcomes, while his PhD focuses specifically on the association between spatial skills and STEM educational and professional outcomes.
Quan Zhou, PhD student
Quan is a PhD student in Psychology at the School of Biological and Behavioural Science, Queen Mary University of London. Before starting his PhD with CoDE Lab in October 2021, Quan completed an MSc in Psychology and Education at the University of Sheffield in 2020. His PhD, founded by the Chinese Scholarship Council Fellowship and supervised by Dr. Margherita Malanchini, Prof. Michael Pluess, and Dr. Kaili Rimfeld, focuses on investigating gene-environment interplay in the development of education related noncognitive skills.
Wangjingyi Liao, PhD student
Jingiy joined CoDE Lab as a PhD student in September 2022, funded by a Chinese Scholarship Council Fellowship. Her PhD project investigates gene-environment interplay in cognitive development, supervised by Dr. Margherita Malanchini, Professor Robert Plomin and Dr. Andrea Allegrini. Jingyi completed her BSc in Psychology at King’s College London and her MSc in Bioinformatics and Genetic Epidemiology at Cardiff University. Her BSc and MSc dissertations focused on examining the role of common and rare genetic variants in explaining phenotypic variation in cognition and mental illness.
Nurul Afifah Rusyda, PhD Student
Nurul is a PhD student in Psychology at the School of Biological and Behavioural Science, Queen Mary University of London. Before starting her PhD with CoDE Lab in September 2023, Nurul completed an MEd in Mathematics Education at the Indonesian University of Education in 2017 and her Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics Education at the University of Negeri Padang (Indonesia) in 2015. She was awarded the prestigious Indonesian Education PhD Scholarship from the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology in 2023, which funds her 4-year PhD. She is supervised by Dr. Margherita Malanchini and Dr. Guifen Chen, and her PhD work focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of mathematics interventions for primary school children at risk. She works closely with Number Champions, one of CoDE Lab non-academic partners.
Engin Keser, PhD student (KCL)
Engin is an ESRC-funded PhD student at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) Centre, King’s College London. Before starting her PhD, Engin worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Cambridge on a project looking at the neuropsychological mechanisms of checking behaviour in patients with OCD and schizophrenia. Engin then completed the MSc Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology at the SGDP, King’s College London. Her MSc thesis investigated the shared genetic liability between childhood obsessive-compulsive behaviour and psychotic experiences in adulthood. Engin’s PhD project is supervised by Prof Robert Plomin, Dr Kaili Rimfeld and Dr Margherita Malanchini and uses genetic and genomic methods to investigate psychopathology and its development.
Francesca Procopio, PhD student (KCL)
Francesca completed her BSc in Psychology at Queen Mary University of London and after a couple of years away from academia, she conducted an MSc in Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London. Her MSc thesis investigated the influence of specialist genes on mathematical, language, and reading ability in 12-year-old twins. Francesca's PhD project, supervised by Professor Robert Plomin, Dr. Kaili Rimfeld, and Dr. Margherita Malanchini, extends upon her MSc work and will be using both genetic and genomic approaches to investigate the genetic specificity of cognitive traits independent from the influence of generalist genes.
Amy Paker, PhD student (KCL)
Amy PhD work is focused on the roles of telomere length and inflammation in age-related cognitive changes. To explore this, she is using longitudinal modelling, neuroimaging and population genetic methods, supervised by Dr. Tim Powell, Dr. Danai Dima and Dr. Margherita Malanchini. Before starting her PhD, Amy completed a Master of Research in Psychology at the University of Bath and worked as a Research Assistant on the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS).