Emily McKendrick

Emily is an Early Career Researcher Psychologist with a PhD in Environmental and Cognitive Psychology, experienced in teaching, research, and grant writing. Research experience includes use of wearable biometric devices (e.g., eye-tracking), and applications of these in cognitive and social psychology, including improving the lives of individuals with learning disabilities.

Email: [email protected]

Background

Emily completed her undergraduate degree and PhD at ARU. During this time, she held various research and teaching related roles at ARU and taught at The Open University. After her PhD, Emily worked at the University of Cambridge as a Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Body, Mind and Behaviour Laboratory.

Emily is now a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at ARU with research primarily focusing on improving the health and wellbeing of individuals with severe and profound intellectual disabilities. Prior to academia, Emily spent 6 years working in a nursing home for adults with learning disabilities and complex needs.

Research interests

Emily carries out research in the following areas:

• Intellectual disabilities (severe and profound disabilities, support, empowerment and agency)
• Applied research using eye-tracking and biometric sensors
• Environment and behaviour (attention restoration theory, stress reduction theory, environmental preference, benefits of museums and art galleries)

Areas of research supervision

• Intellectual disabilities (severe and profound disabilities, support, empowerment and agency)
• Applied research using eye-tracking and biometric sensors
• Environment and behaviour (attention restoration theory, stress reduction theory, environmental preference, benefits of museums and art galleries)
• Blame theory and attribution theory

Teaching

BA (Hons) Psychology

• Self and Society
• Mind and Behaviour
• Becoming a Researcher
• Brain, Body and Mind
• Clinical and Health Psychology
• Research in Action
• Social Psychology, Development and Difference
• The Psychology of Everyday Life
• Psychology Project

MSc Psychology

• Essential Research Methods
• Issues in Scientific Research
• Psychology MSc Dissertation

MSc Clinical Child Psychology

• Diagnosis and Treatment in Clinical Child Psychology
• Psychology MSc Dissertation

MSc Consumer Psychology

• Applied Consumer Psychology
• Psychology MSc Dissertation

Qualifications

Doctoral Degree (PhD) - Anglia Ruskin University

BSc (Hons) Psychology (classification: 1:1) - Anglia Ruskin University

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

ARU Innovation Voucher Scheme 2026 - Successful application for £4997.80 received for project: “Acceptability, Benefits and Challenges of Smartsocks for Identifying Pain and Distress in People with Severe to Profound Intellectual Disabilities”. Research Team: Mick Finlay, Emily McKendrick, Lewis Goodings and Zeke Steer (CEO of Milbotix).

ARU Faculty Research Pump Priming Programme 2023/24 – Successful application for £9924 received for project: “Looking At Voices: Exploring Eye Movements and Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia and Borderline Personality Disorder”. Research Team: David Pearson, David Ho (Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust), and Emily McKendrick.

ARU Faculty Research Pump Priming Programme 2022/23 – Successful application for £9341 received for project: “The Link Between Nature-Based Activity, Stress and Cortisol: Measuring Stress Reduction Using Saliva and Hair Biomarkers”. Research Team: David Pearson, Matt Bristow, Christine Bryson, Nic Gibson, and Emily McKendrick.

Selected recent publications

Owen, C., Campbell, C. & McKendrick, E. (2026). The Focus Group in Qualitative Research. In C. Sullivan & S. Riley (eds). Doing Qualitative Research in Psychology (3^rd) Sage.

Gradidge, S., Harvey, A. J., Gibson, N., Keyes, H., Knuppel, A., McKendrick, E., Ownsworth, R., & Zawisza, M. (2026). Fear motivates and dread stalls: The role of emotions in climate support. Frontiers in Psychology, 17(1667470). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1667470

Zawisza, M. J., Szymkow-Sudziarska, A., De Zavala, A. G., & Mckendrick, E. (2016). How to get women into engineering? Gendered advertising, STEM subjects and embodied cognition.: OR1027. International Journal of Psychology, 51, 616.

McKendrick, E., Pake, J. M., Keyes, H., & Pearson, D. G. (in preparation). A Fascinating Measure of Restoration? Using Eye-tracking To Assess Effortless Attention During Controlled and Field-based Exposure to Outdoor Environments.

McKendrick, E., Pake, J. M., Keyes, H., & Pearson, D. G. (in preparation). Photograph Database Depicting Perceived Restorative Potential of Outdoor Environments in the UK.

McKendrick, E., Chandler-Wilde, R., & Schnall, S. (in preparation). Effects of Visiting a Natural History Museum on Attention Restoration and Abstract Thinking.

Stevanov, J., McKendrick, E., Chandler-Wilde, R., Sigute Mikalonyte, E., & Schnall, S. (in preparation). Ways of Information Processing in the Museum: An Eye-Tracking Study

Recent presentations and conferences

Society for Personality and Social Psychology - Denver, Colorado, USA (2025): Poster presentation - McKendrick, E., Chandler-Wilde, R., & Schnall, S. (2025). Effects of Visiting a Natural History Museum on Attention Restoration and Abstract Thinking.

British Feeding and Drinking Group ECR conference - Cambridge, UK (2024): Member of the organising Committee for the Early Careers Researchers’ conference.

European Workshop of Imagery and Cognition - Cambridge, UK (2023): Oral presentation “A fascinating measure of restoration? Using eye-tracking to assess effortless attention during controlled and field exposure to outdoor environments”.

European Workshop of Imagery and Cognition PGR conference – Online (2021): Gave an online oral presentation titled: “Examining the effectiveness of eye-movements for measuring effortless attention while viewing photographs of fascinating environments”