Prof Antonia Bifulco

Professor in Psychology

Antonia Bifulco

  • School Faculty of Science and Technology

  • Department Psychology

  • Location London

Research activities

  • Childhood neglect and abuse and adult depression.
  • Online child abuse
  • Intergenerational transmission of vulnerability for psychological disorder
  • Trauma in war - both ongoing and across generations
  • Attachment style  in relation to psychological disorder.
  • Trauma, stress and coping.
  • Interview assessments for childhood neglect/abuse; attachment style, parenting and adversity.
  • Interventions for young people in residential care
  • Attachment assessment used in adoption/fostering practice

    • Current Teaching

    My ongoing direct contributions toteaching include: teaching on an MSc module I designed and based around my research - Trauma experience and interventions. This is a shared MSc module (for Psychological Therapies and Interventions' Clinical Health and Wellbeing and Applied Psychology).  I also teach on  2nd year UG teaching 'Contemporary Issues'  around child, adult and intergenerational trauma. I undertake MSc dissertation supervision, and guest lecturing on Psychology Foundation. All of thesehave been informed by my own research agenda, are updated with current events(eg war trauma in Ukraine) and have proved popular withstudents.


    Biography

    Throughout my research career I have addressed issues of social justice/equality; integrity/ethics in research with excellence of method and measurement and sustained dissemination/ impact for practice contexts. My topic is the psychosocial origins of clinical disorder involving trauma/abuse and attachment vulnerability. Originally employed on MRC grants for the Social Research Unit at Bedford College, University of London for Prof George Brown, my PhD supervisor, I have continued working on intensive interviews measures. My work has involvednovel measurement design, testing of causal models, and disseminating to academia and practice. My lifespan approach has tested trauma impacts and attachment in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, older age and intergenerationally through successive grants. I have directedthe Centre for Abuse and Trauma Studies (CATS) since 2009, bringing the Centreto MDX in 2013, now as sole director [Academicresearch in the digital age | CATS research centre]. This Psychology/Criminology focusedcentre aims to  ‘undertake rigorous,ethical, community-relevant research on topics related to abuse and trauma, fitfor the 21st century.’ Its work is digitally and internet informedre harms online but also online assessment and wellbeing interventions.  The Centre has been successfully funded with researchincome since 2019 of around £1million.

    External activities

  • Reviewer for major grants, ESRC, 2013

    • Publications

    View publications