Biography
Sam Wass studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, where he specialised in developmental psychology. He did a PhD and a postdoctoral appointment at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck. He then worked at the Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, in Cambridge, and in the Department of Psychology at Cambridge University. Since January 2016, he is a lecturer at the University of East London.
Sam's research focuses on understanding concentration and stress during early childhood. He works with young children from typical backgrounds and also with those from a variety of atypical backgrounds, including children from low socio-economic status backgrounds, and babies and young children who have relatives with conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Sam's work involves studying the dynamics of naturalistic attention in ecologically valid, 'real-world' settings. As part of this, he also investigates the role that stress — both external stressors in the environment (such as a chaotic household environment) and internally generated stressors (worries) — play in influencing young childrens' ability to concentrate and to learn in academic settings.
Sam also works developing new techniques to train concentration skills in young children. Current collaborators on this work include Mark Johnson (London), Patrick Bolton (London), Tony Charman (London), Jukka Leppanen (Tampere), Susan Rose (New York), John Duncan (Cambridge), Edmund Sonuga-Barke (Southampton), Lonnie Zwaigenbaum (Edmonton) and Susan Bryson (Edmonton).
Further details of Sam's research can be found on his research pages:
https://www.sites.google.com/site/samwass/. A full list of Sam's
publications, including pdfs for download, can be found here:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sam_Wass.
