The speakers
Dr Luke Clark
Luke Clark is a University Lecturer in the Department of Experimental Psychology in Cambridge, and the Director of Studies in Psychology at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Luke co-directs the Laboratory for Affect, Risk and Gambling Experiments (LARGE) and has broad research interests in the brain mechanisms that support risky or impulsive decision-making, and how these mechanisms are disrupted in forms of mental illness including the addictions and mood disorders. Over the past five years, much of his work has focussed on the psychology of gambling, and how the cognitive distortions that occur during gambling are relevant to problem gambling, as a form of behavioural addiction. This research involves a longstanding collaboration with National Problem Gambling Clinic in London, and combines several methods including functional brain imaging (fMRI, PET), physiological monitoring, and pharmacological challenges. His current research is supported by the Medical Research Council and the Royal Society, and through affiliation to the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, supported by a joint award from the MRC and the Wellcome Trust. His work has been published in leading journals including Brain, Neuron and Journal of Neuroscience, and has been featured in national news coverage, The Economist, and Radio 4’s ‘All in the Mind’.
Dr Tim Dalgeish
Tim Dalgleish is a clinical psychologist who leads the Cognition, Emotion and Mental Health Programme in the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. Tim is also the Director of the Cambridge Centre for Affective Disorders (C2:AD). Tim has researched and written extensively on emotional anxiety disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and phobia. His work focuses on understanding the core processes involved in the onset, maintenance and recovery from mood and anxiety disorders, and also translating this understanding into novel forms of psychological treatment for these disorders.
Ms Sigal Spiegel
Sigal Spigel is a psychologist and psychotherapist who works locally with adolescents with eating disorders. She was a founding member and now a senior associate member of the Centre for Gender Studies, Cambridge University. She co-founded MaMSIE: Mapping Maternal Subjectivities Identities and Ethics (www.mamsie.org/) an interdisciplinary research network that aims to open up critical debates about the maternal in current cultural, political, aesthetic, psychosocial, clinical and theoretical configurations. She is also the co-editor of 'Studies in the Maternal', an international, peer-reviewed, scholarly online journal (www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/).