Rate My Professor Umar Toseeb

Professor Umar Toseeb is a Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of York, a position he holds currently. He joined the University of York in 2018 after holding several positions at various universities. His previous roles at York include Lecturer in Psychology in Education in the Department of Education, Senior Lecturer in Education, and Professor in Education. Toseeb leads the Child and Adolescent Neurodevelopmental Diversity (CANDY) Group, which focuses on special educational needs and mental health during childhood and adolescence. He also leads the Psychology in Education Research Centre (PERC) and co-hosts the Mind the Kids Podcast on children and young people's development. In 2025, he delivered his inaugural lecture titled 'Special Educational Needs and Mental Health: Why?'.

Toseeb's research examines children's social, emotional, and cognitive development, with particular emphasis on special educational needs, mental health and wellbeing, bullying, anti-social behaviour, and youth offending. He utilizes quantitative methods including longitudinal modelling, latent class analysis, growth curve modelling, structural equation modelling, and multilevel modelling on large datasets such as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, Millennium Cohort Study, and National Pupil Database to explore genetic and environmental influences, social functioning (e.g., conduct problems, hyperactivity, inattention), emotional functioning (e.g., depression, anxiety, self-harm), and cognitive differences (e.g., autism, developmental language disorder). Key publications include 'A Network Approach to Developmental Differences and Disorders' (2026, Developmental Science), 'Bullying Trajectories from Childhood to Adolescence: The Relationship with Mental Health Outcomes for Autistic and Neurotypical Youth' (2026, Autism Research), 'Developmental Language Disorder and Offending: A Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Study with Linked Education and Crime Data' (2025, PsyArXiv Preprints), and a book on Developmental Language Disorder (2024). He participates in funded projects, including 'OBT: Evaluating the efficacy of Adventure Learning programmes in UK secondary schools' (2025-2027).