Research journey
An active research career, a long absence, and a deliberate return to curiosity-driven work. The health context below is included because it explains the gap.
The record
Doctoral research in Vision Science (Optometry) at the University of Bradford, awarded in 2003, followed EPSRC-supported work on visual texture and contour perception and a series of psychophysical studies of amblyopia, contrast adaptation and spatial perception.
Lecturing in biological and cognitive psychology at Trinity & All Saints College, University of Leeds, then a Senior Lecturer post at Leeds Metropolitan University until 2008.
Research output stopped. The reasons were partly professional — the current Professional Services role at the University of Bradford does not include research output — and partly health-related, described in the section below.
The period was not empty. Supporting research methods teaching, statistics and experiment design for undergraduate and postgraduate students kept methodological practice current, including technical and programming support contributed to refereed journal articles.
The return to public research is deliberate and independent. Questions are chosen because they are interesting and consequential, not because they fit a funding call or a reporting cycle.
The current work concerns cognitive and executive offloading and the cognitive implications of generative AI. A manuscript on this work is under submission; nothing here is described as accepted or forthcoming.
Health context
This page gives brief, factual health context because it explains a twenty-year gap in the research record. It is not medical advice. Links point to recognised organisations; please use them rather than this page for information about any condition.
Mental health
Four episodes of severe depression occurred across this period. The last two each lasted more than a year.
Depression of that duration does not simply pause a research career; it removes the sustained attention, planning and confidence that research depends on. Recovery, and the slow return of curiosity, is a substantial part of why the work resumed when it did.
Personal reflection
A personal account, not medical advice
Someone recently asked me what it was like inside my head when I was living with depression.
I replied: picture Scarborough in mid-November. No neon arcade signs. The donkeys have put their hooves up for the winter. Rain is splashing against the windows of closed fish and chip shops.
That will give you some idea.
I am sure some of my learned friends would prefer to describe my mind as an empty tin of Roses in mid-January. You open it hopefully and find a stray wrapper and a lot of empty space.
I concede, they may have a point.
I've always found self-deprecation therapeutic. I don't particularly mind friends sticking the boot in occasionally and reminding me of my station. I probably need it.
The problem comes when I try to describe depression more seriously. My own limited use of language seems particularly inadequate. A poet or an artist would probably be better placed to do the honours.
Stephen Fry and Andrew Scott have both used 'weather' when talking about depression, and I understand why. Weather captures something of the lack of control. It arrives. You are in it. You cannot argue with it.
It doesn't quite work for me, though, because weather passes.
Mine is probably closer to climate.
I've had periods of depression severe enough that I nearly didn't survive them. I've also had long periods when life is manageable, productive and often very enjoyable. I'm in one of those periods now.
I wouldn't say the depression disappears during these periods. It becomes quieter.
During the quiet periods I can see beyond it. I can work, laugh, become interested in ridiculous things, annoy people, make things, write things and get disproportionately excited about ideas. Depression hasn't necessarily left the building. It has just stopped shouting from the other room.
At its worst, it is very different.
I feel as though I am submerged in blackness. Not metaphorical grey or a gloomy afternoon. Blackness.
Somewhere above the surface there is a hand, and somewhere beyond it a tiny point of light.
The hand isn't really reaching for the light. That makes the image more hopeful than it feels to me. It is pointing towards it.
It's there.
That's about all.
A pinhole of something outside the blackness that I can still recognise but cannot imagine reaching.
It makes me think of Stevie Smith's Not Waving but Drowning. I don't mean that my experience is the experience described in the poem. It is that separation between what is happening to somebody and what can be seen from outside that gets me.
You can see the hand. You can't see the person underneath.
I've tried to create these two states visually using AI. One is what I call the quiet period; the other is the blackness.
I don't offer them as representations of depression generally. I have no idea what depression looks or feels like inside somebody else's head. They are representations of mine.
Perhaps that is why I wanted to put them here. We spend a lot of time trying to find a common vocabulary for mental health, which is useful, but perhaps we should occasionally ask people for their own metaphors too, however odd they initially sound.
Mine apparently involve Scarborough in November, an empty Roses tin and a hand poking out of black water.
None would be much use in a clinical textbook.
But if somebody asks what it is like inside my head, they probably tell you rather more than a diagnostic label ever could.
About the condition
Depression is a significant mental health condition, not a low mood. It can affect concentration, memory, motivation, sleep and physical health, and severe episodes may persist for months or years.
It is common and it is treatable. Anyone recognising these experiences should speak to a GP or use the services below.
Recognised information sources
Symptoms, treatments and how to get help in the UK.
Mental health charity: information and support for depression.
Free, 24-hour listening service. Call 116 123 in the UK and Ireland.
Oncology
A diagnosis of Merkel Cell Carcinoma, and the treatment and surveillance that followed, interrupted work and reordered priorities.
Recovery sharpened a preference for questions worth spending time on. It is a direct reason the research that resumed is curiosity-driven rather than career-driven.
About the condition
Merkel Cell Carcinoma is a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer. It typically appears as a fast-growing, painless lump on sun-exposed skin and can spread earlier than more common skin cancers, so prompt diagnosis and treatment matter.
Treatment usually involves surgery, and may involve radiotherapy or immunotherapy, with long-term follow-up.
Recognised information sources
Overview, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.
NHS guidance on non-melanoma skin cancers and when to seek help.
Patient support organisation: living with and after diagnosis.
Bleeding disorder
Factor XI deficiency is a lifelong condition, and I am a registered haemophiliac under the care of a haemophilia centre.
It requires planning around surgery, dental work and injury. Living with a condition that is managed rather than cured encourages a practical, evidence-led way of working — and a low tolerance for claims that outrun their evidence.
About the condition
Factor XI deficiency, sometimes called haemophilia C, is a rare inherited bleeding disorder in which clotting Factor XI is reduced or does not work normally, so blood clots less effectively.
Bleeding risk varies between individuals and is often most apparent after surgery, dental procedures or injury. It is managed with specialist haemophilia care and planning rather than routine daily treatment.
Recognised information sources
UK patient organisation: information on Factor XI deficiency.
International reference on rare factor deficiencies.
NHS overview of haemophilia and bleeding disorders.
Research philosophy
Curiosity before career
Questions are chosen because they matter and because they are interesting. There is no promotion case attached to this work, which removes a familiar set of incentives to overclaim.
Slow, honest output
Work appears when it is ready. An interest is called an interest; a manuscript under submission is not called a publication.
Method in the open
Long illness makes you sceptical of confident stories told on thin evidence. Design, analysis decisions and limitations belong in view, which is also why transparent reporting and the replication debate are part of the research programme.
Usefulness to students
The research questions and the day-to-day support of student research feed each other: what students struggle to do well is often exactly what the field does badly at scale.
This is an independent personal research website. It is not an official University of Bradford website and does not represent the University. Page checked 21 August 2026.