Aoife Talbot, (PhD Researcher)

Aoife Talbot is a PhD researcher working on an interdisciplinary project across both the School of Psychology and the School of Computing at Ulster University. Aoife completed her BSc in Psychology at Durham University, where she graduated in 2022 with a first class honours. She has previously worked as a teaching assistant in an SEN school in the North East of England, where she supported children both 1:1 and in group settings with a range of complex needs. She has also previously worked as a healthcare assistant, supporting clinical populations in a hospital context, during the peak of the coronavirus outbreak.

Aoife’s PhD project aims to explore how best to measure both sleep and mental health outcomes amongst parental caregivers of children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions. She intends to use a previously developed framework for appraising sensor technology to determine the most appropriate sleep sensor(s) for use with parents in this population.  Her research will utilise a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods (including through interviews, home visits, and the piloting of sleep and mental health data collection) to explore the feasibility and acceptability of using the selected sleep sensor(s) in conjunction with mental health measures within this population of parents.