Rate My Professor Sarah Halligan

Professor Sarah Halligan is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, where she has held the position since February 2013. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Natural Sciences, specializing in Experimental Psychology, from the University of Cambridge, and her Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oxford, with a thesis entitled "Cognitive processes in the maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder." Her work centers on child and family mental health as part of the Addiction and Mental Health Group (AIM). Halligan accepts doctoral students for projects on the impacts of trauma on child and adolescent mental health and was awarded the University of Bath Excellence in Doctoral Supervision Prize in 2024.

Halligan's research examines the development of psychological disorders, particularly posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, focusing on young people. In the PTSD domain, she studies cognitive-behavioural, biological, and social factors contributing to the disorder post-trauma exposure across national and international populations. Her depression research investigates associations between parental depression, child development, and psychological disorder risk. She explores how parents and caregivers can support affected youth and identifies intervention targets. Key projects she has led include "Parental Responses to Child Trauma: the Role of Trauma Specific Behaviours and Parenting Style in Facilitating Child Psychological Adjustment" (Economic and Social Research Council, 2014-2017), "Children Exposed to Trauma and Violence in a High Risk LMIC Setting: Elucidating Risk and Resilience for Early Health, Behaviour and Development" (Academy of Medical Sciences, 2015-2019), and "Developing Online Information for Trauma Exposed Children and their Families" (Economic and Social Research Council, 2018-2024). Prominent publications are "Maternal postnatal depression and the development of depression in offspring up to 16 years of age" (Murray et al., 2011, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), "Insecure attachment during infancy predicts greater amygdala volumes in early adulthood" (Moutsiana et al., 2015, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry), "Research Review: Changes in the prevalence and symptom severity of child post-traumatic stress disorder in the year following trauma – a meta-analytic study" (Hiller et al., 2016, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry), "Caregiver Responses to Child Posttraumatic Distress: A Qualitative Study in a High Risk Context in South Africa" (Williamson et al., 2017, Journal of Traumatic Stress), and "A longitudinal investigation of the role of parental responses in predicting children's post-traumatic distress" (Hiller et al., 2018, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry). Her scholarship has garnered over 13,000 citations with an h-index of 52.