Personal statement
I joined the School in 2012 after spending 8 years at Swansea University as a Lecturer and, before then, as an ESRC Research Fellow at St. Andrews.
My research focuses on why we forget. Some of this research has been theory driven examining the underlying processes of why we forget some memories but not others. Research has also focused on the practical applications including the accuracy and completeness of eyewitness memory and memory in sub-clinical disorders.
I am also interested in the mechanisms of change underlying third-wave therapies, such as Mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and examining whether distress predicts the development, and maintenance, of psychological difficulties.
Qualifications
PhD in Psychology, University of St. Andrews
BSc (Hons) Psychology, University of St. Andrews
Teaching
C8105/C8106: Research Methods & Statistics
C8106: Introduction to Development
C8305: Development (Course Leader)
C8445: Practical Aspects of Memory (Course Leader)
I am also the Disability Contact for the School.
Research interests
Theories of forgetting
Intentional and unintentional forgetting
Odour memory
Eyewitness memory
Psychogenic amnesia/fugue, trauma memory and dissociation
Recovered memories and repression
Amnesia in offenders
Psychopathology (depression, anxiety, OCD, psychosis and schizotypy, personality disorders, repressive coping)
Self-protective memory (i.e., mnemic neglect)
Third-wave therapies
Social psychiatry
Professional activities
- Applied Cognitive Psychology (Journal)
- Peer reviewer
- 22/12/2017
- External Examiner of Doctoral Thesis
- Examiner
- 2017
- Applied Cognitive Psychology (Journal)
- Guest editor
- 11/2015
- Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (External organisation)
- Member
- 1/6/2014
- The Carnegie Trust (External organisation)
- Member
- 1/6/2014
- Journal of Experimental Psychopathology (Journal)
- Editorial board member
- 1/8/2013
More professional activities
Projects
- The development of emotional regulation in adolescence
- Saunders, Jo (Academic)
- 01-Jan-2014 - 30-Jan-2017
- Can we improve eyewitness memory?
- Saunders, Jo (Academic)
- Carnegie Trust Internship to Adele Ahmet
- 17-Jan-2013 - 20-Jan-2013
- Aromachology: Interactions between odour and verbal memory
- Saunders, Jo (Principal Investigator)
- Leverhulme Trust
- 01-Jan-2010 - 30-Jan-2012
- British Academy Travel Grant
- Saunders, Jo (Academic)
- Travel grant to attend SARMAC in Japan
- 20-Jan-2009 - 25-Jan-2009
- Memory for objects: Retrieval competition in memory between visual object properties
- Reppa, Irene (Principal Investigator) Saunders, Jo (Principal Investigator)
- Leverhulme Trust
- 01-Jan-2007 - 31-Jan-2010
- Imagery and forgetting: The role of images in retrieval-induced forgetting
- Saunders, Jo (Principal Investigator)
- Leverhulme Trust
- 01-Jan-2006 - 31-Jan-2007
More projects