Dr Gemma Taylor
School of Health & Society
Current positions
Associate Professor/Reader
Biography
Gemma is an Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology at the University of Salford and Psychology Research Theme Co-lead with Dr Sharon Coen. Gemma joined the University of Salford as a lecturer in 2016 and is an expert in child development with over 15 years’ experience conducting research with children aged from 3-months to 4 years. Gemma completed her PhD at the University of Sheffield studying the role of attention on learning and memory development across infancy and was supervised by Dr Jane Herbert. Gemma’s research area focusses on children’s development in the digital age and children’s digital media.
Gemma has previously held a prestigious Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant as Principal Investigator (2018-21), she has contributed to the British Psychological Society (BPS) and Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POSTnote) publications on children’s media use and written evidence for the recent Education Committee’s Screen Time enquiry. Gemma is a chartered member of the British Psychological Society, a peer reviewer for external funders including the ESRC and a Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers in Psychology – Developmental Psychology. Gemma is currently supervising two PhD students.
Areas of Research
Screen media is a ubiquitous in children’s day to day lives, my research strives to understand the impact of screen media on children’s early cognitive development. In particular, I am interested in children’s declarative memory development and children’s early word learning.
Salford Cognitive Development Lab website: https://www.salford.ac.uk/research/health-sciences/research-groups/psychology/salford-cognitive-development-lab
Child Development, Digital Media, Learning, Memory, Language Development
Areas of Supervision
I am currently supervising two PhD students investigating; "The effects of child education on short-to-medium term dog welfare in the home environment" and "Facilitating Autism Training: Identification of Training Needs and Implementation of Autism Training for Student Police Officers".
I am regularly involved in the internal evaluation of PhD students across all levels of study, and I act as an independent chair for vivas at the University of Salford.
I am open to discussions with anyone looking to do a PhD in Developmental Psychology.
Module Leader: L4 Introduction to Developmental and Social Psychology, L5 Developmental Psychology and L6 Atypical Child Development
Contributor: L4 Introduction to Research Methods, MSc Media Psychology Research Methods
Supervisor: UG Dissertations, PGT Dissertation supervisor
Qualifications
-
Developmental Psychology
2010 - 2013