I am a Global Leader in Psychology at York St John. A qualified clinical psychologist, I was appointed CBE for services to science and the understanding of dyslexia in 2016. I am an expert on dyslexia and language development (Highly Ranked Scholar, 2025) and on developmental language disorder, I am committed to equality in education and fair access to higher education regardless of background. I served as an expert member of the Rose Review of Dyslexia (2009), and advised on the Phonics Screening Check (2010), the Reception Baseline Assessment (2015) and the Revised Reading Curriculum 2 (2023). I am an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Research Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, where I served as President from 2012 to 2022.
With Charles Hulme, I have conducted extensive programmes of randomised controlled trials evaluating interventions for children with reading and language difficulties, most notably the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme, which has been delivered to approximately two-thirds of English primary schools since 2020 with support from the Department for Education.
I am a Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Honorary Fellow of British Psychological Society. I am a member of the US Reading Hall of Fame and of Academia Europae and she hold honorary degrees from Goldsmiths University, UCL, and the Universities of Warwick and Bristol.
In 2020 I co-founded OxEd Ltd., an Oxford spin-out company delivering screening and interventions for language and reading in schools. I am currently a non-executive director and Chair of the Board.
