Dr Emily A Williams

Profile

I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow (2022-26) in the School of Psychology. I am investigating how children acquire the fine motor skill of ten-finger typing. I am interested in the sub-skills of typing (e.g. keyboard memory, keystroke overlap and error monitoring) and how these change in importance over time. I am passionate about increasing academic attainment in young learners, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I am also interested in the field of User Research and take a user-centred approach to my studies with participants. I have conducted multiple user research studies within my typing research, including a co-design workshop with teachers, observation of children using the programme at science fairs, surveys and diary studies.

In 2019-20, I worked as the Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Glasses in Classes trial, which aims to increase glasses test attendance and glasses wear in Reception children (aged 4-5), with a view to increasing their literacy and maths scores. I wasresponsible for wrangling the health data for over 4,500 pupils, sharing weekly data insights with the external evaluation team, and I also co-designed and delivered the professional development sessions to educational professionals. The year prior (2018-19), I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Helping Handwriting SHINE trial, which aimed to increase the writing composition of children in Year 2 (age 6-7) and Year 5 (age 9-10) with and without handwriting difficulties through teacher-led evidence-based activity sessions.

Before joining the University of Leeds in 2018, I completed my BSc (2014), MRes (2015), and PhD (2018) in Psychology at the University of Manchester in the time perception lab, Time Lab Manchester. I specialised in time perception since my third year undergraduate project, and my PhD focused on how we perceive time in different sensory modalities (hearing, vision, and touch), and how certain auditory stimulation may affect our time perception due to increasing psychophysiological arousal (as measured by heart rate and pupil dilation). My thesis is titled ‘Investigating the Pacemaker Component of the Human Timing System’, and I was supervised by Dr Luke Jones and Dr Andrew Stewart.

Alongside my postgraduate research, I held the position of Widening Participation Fellow (2015-18), and I currently act as an Engagement Fellow (2019-21) as part of the Engagement Excellence Scheme.

Research interests

Since my PhD, I made an effortful transition from lab-based experimental psychology (with school outreach as a significant side-project) to the core of my research being increasing academic attainment in children in my Postdoctoral work. I paused my primary focus of lab-based research to gain postdoctoral experience in applied educational and health research. As of September 2022, I am working on a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship which fuses my expertise in experimental psychology, my experience in applied educational research, and my interest in timing-related behaviours. I am investigating the acquisition of the typing skill in children and adults.

Qualifications

• PhD Psychology (2015-18)
• MRes Psychology (2014-15)
• BSc Psychology (2011-14)

Research groups and institutes

• Perception, action, cognition