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Wendy Browne

Position/Status

Andrew & Virginia Rudd Teaching Associate in Developmental Psychopathology & Education Practice

E-mail Address

wvb20@cam.ac.uk

Qualifications

  • PhD Psychology, University of Cambridge, 2011-2015
  • MPhil Social and Developmental Psychology, University of Cambridge, 2010-2011
  • BSc Psychology, University of Warwick, 2006-2009

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Profile

Wendy is an Affiliated Lecturer in Developmental Psychopathology and Education Practice at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Her main responsibilities consist of teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students in areas covering mental health, psychology and education, as well as developmental psychopathology.

Supported by the ESRC, Wendy received her PhD in 2015 from the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, where her research focused on the influence of early postnatal testosterone concentrations on behaviours which show sex differences. Following completion of her degree, Wendy held various research-based positions at the Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, where she worked on two substantive longitudinal studies, the New Fathers and Mothers Study (New FAMS) and the Baby Talk and Baby Blues Study, both of which involved the assessment of parental mental health during the transition to parenthood, as well as the influence of family-based processes, including parenting and the quality of the mother-father relationship, on child emotional and behavioural outcomes. Wendy first joined the Faculty of Education as a Research Associate at the Play in Education Development & Learning (PEDAL) centre in 2017, where she worked on a study which explored the measurement of play and its association with social-emotional development in early school-aged children. She subsequently held a Teaching Associate position where she began her teaching contributions on the Psychology & Education (P&E) MPhil/MEd degree as well as on the undergraduate Education Tripos.

Academic Area/Links

  • Psychology and Education, Faculty of Education
  • Education Tripos, Faculty of Education
  • Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, Department of Psychology

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Research Topics

  • Parental influences, child mental health and related outcomes
  • Parenting and family influences on child development
  • Prenatal and early postnatal testosterone
  • Neurobehavioural development

Prospective PhD Applications

Wendy is currently not taking applications from PhD students

Current Research Project(s)

  • Andrew and Virginia Rudd Research and Professional Practice Programme
  • Continued involvement with the New FAMS (PI: Professor Claire Hughes)

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Teaching

  • Postgraduate
    • MPhil and MEd lecturing (P&E)
    • MPhil and MEd supervision (P&E) 
    • PhD advisor (Department of Psychology)
  • Undergraduate
    • Lecturing (Education Tripos): Learning and Human Development (Education, Psychology & Learning track)
    • Coordination of three papers borrowed from the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Tripos (Introduction to Psychology, Social and Developmental Psychology, and Development and Psychopathology

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Principal and Recent Publications

Fink, E., Foley, S., Browne, W. V., & Hughes, C. (in review). Parental sensitivity and family conversation: A naturalistic longitudinal study with both mothers and fathers across three time-points in early infancy. Infant Behavior and Development.

Hughes, C., Foley, S., Browne, W. V., McHarg, G., & Devine, R. (2022). Developmental links between executive function and emotion regulation in early toddlerhood. Infant Behavior and Development.

Richards, G., & Browne, W. V. (2021). Prenatal testosterone and sexually differentiated childhood play preferences: A meta-analysis of amniotic fluid studies. Current Psychology.

Richards, G., Browne, W. V., & Constantinescu, M. (2021). Digit ratio (2D:4D) and amniotic testosterone and estradiol: An attempted replication of Lutchmaya et al. (2004). Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 12, 859–864.

Sher, D. A., Gibson, J. L., & Browne, W. V. (2021). “It’s like stealing what should be theirs.” An exploration of the experiences and perspectives of parents and educational practitioners on Hebrew-English bilingualism for Jewish Autistic children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Gibson, J., Fink, E., Torres, P., Browne, W. V., & Mareva, S. (2020). Making sense of social pretence: The role of the dyad, sex and language ability in a large observational study of children’s behaviours in a social pretend play context. Social Development, 29, 526-543.

Hughes, C., Foley, S., Devine, R. T., Ribner, A., Kyriakou, L., Boddington, L., ... & NewFAMS team Contributors: Lenneke Alink, Marjolein Branger, Wendy Browne, Rosanneke Emmen, Sarah Foley, Lara Kyriakou, Anja Lindberg, Gabrielle McHarg, Andrew Ribner, & Mi-Lan Woudstra. (2020). Worrying in the wings? Negative emotional birth memories in mothers and fathers show similar associations with perinatal mood disturbance and delivery mode. Archives of Women's Mental Health, 23, 371-377.

Richards, G., Browne, W. V., Aydin, E., Constantinescu, M., Nave, G., Kim, M., & Watson, S. (2020). Digit ratio (2D:4D) and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH): Systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Hormones and Behavior, 126, 1-20.

Fink, E., Browne, W. V., Kirk, I., & Hughes, C. (2019). Couple relationship quality and the infant home language environment: Gender-specific findings. Journal of Family Psychology, 34, 155-164.

Fink, E., Browne, W. V., Hughes, C., & Gibson, J. (2018). Using a 'child's-eye view' of social success to understand the importance of school readiness at the transition to formal schooling. Social Development, 28, 186-199.

Hines, M., Spencer, D., Kung, K. T., Browne, W. V., Constantinescu, M., & Noorderhaven, R. (2016). The early postnatal period, mini-puberty, provides a window on the role of testosterone in human neurobehavioural development. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 38, 69-73.

Kung, K.T.F., Browne, W. V., Constantinescu, M., Noorderhaven, R., & Hines, M. (2016). Early postnatal testosterone predicts sex-related differences in early expressive vocabulary. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 68, 111-116.

Kung, K. T. F., Constantinescu, M., Browne, W. V., Noorderhaven, R. M., & Hines, M. (2016). No relationship between early postnatal testosterone concentrations and autistic traits in 18- to 30-month-old children. Molecular Autism, 7: 15.

Browne, W. V., Hindmarsh, P. C., Pasterski, V., Hughes, I. A., Acerini, C. L., Spencer, D., Nufeld, S., & Hines, M. (2015). Working memory performance is reduced in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Hormones and Behavior, 67, 83-88.