Dr Cathy Manning FHEA

Member of UK Young Academy, 2024

Fellow of Advance HE (FHEA), 2023

PhD in Psychology, UCL Institute of Education, 2014

MRes in Educational and Social Research, UCL Institute of Education, 2011

BA in Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, 2010

Dr Cathy Manning studied Experimental Psychology at University of Oxford (2007-2010), before completing an MRes/PhD at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education at the UCL Institute of Education (2010-2014). She then held the Scott Family Junior Research Fellowship at University College, Oxford (2014-2017) followed by a Henry Wellcome Fellowship (2017-2021). She moved to University of Reading to start her independent research group in 2021. She then moved to University of Birmingham as an Associate Professor in 2024.

Cathy researches sensory processing across child development, and in autism and dyslexia. She conducts research and impact work to make the world more inclusive for autistic and other neurodivergent people, and leads the 'Sensory Street' project. She has received numerous early career awards, including the British Psychology Society Developmental Section Neil O’Connor Award, the Applied Vision Association David Marr Medal, the Experimental Psychology Society Prize, Autistica’s Reproducible Autism Science Award, and an Association for Psychological Science Rising Star Award. She is also an Editor at the journal, ‘Autism’. She was selected as a member of the UK Young Academy in 2024.

Supervising undergraduate projects; teaching related to development, perception and neurodiversity.

I am interested in supervising projects related to sensory processing, visual perception, attention and decision-making, particularly applied to development and developmental conditions, including autism, ADHD and dyslexia.

1. Visual discomfort in autism
   I have recently been awarded a MRC New Investigator Research Grant to better understand precisely what visual information is uncomfortable for autistic children, and whether this differs from non-autistic children, which will help us make more specific recommendations for the design of spaces and resources. We will also be looking at EEG and autonomic indices of discomfort in autistic and non-autistic children.
2. Sensory-inclusive spaces
   Funded by the Wellcome Trust and a UKRI Research England Participatory Research Grant at the University of Reading, we have been conducting research and engagement work into how we can make public spaces more inclusive for autistic people and sensory processing differences, as part of Sensory Street, working in partnership with autistic people. Together with Dr Keren MacLennan (Durham University), Emily @21andsensory and autistic community consultants, we co-produced a supermarket guide with recommendations for supermarkets to become more inclusive for autistic people. 
3. Decision-making in autistic and dyslexic children
   I use a combination of psychophysics, electroencephalography (EEG) and computational modelling to understand better how autistic and dyslexic children process sensory information and make decisions about it. This work is currently funded by a Wellcome Trust grant. Collaborators are Hodo Yusuf and Dr Lou Thomas (University of Reading), Professor Gaia Scerif (University of Oxford), Dr Nathan J Evans (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), Grant Taylor (University of Queensland), Professor Anthony Norcia (Stanford University) and Professor Eric-Jan Wagenmakers (University of Amsterdam).
4. Dyslexia research priorities
   Funded by a UKRI Research England Participatory Research Grant at the University of Reading, Professor Holly Joseph (University of Reading) and I have been researching what the dyslexia community want future research to focus on, and how this aligns with current funding.