Dr Jennifer Allen, is a Reader and the Director of the SHINE research lab (www.shineresearchlab.com). She is also a HCPC-registered Chartered Clinical Psychologist (BPS), specialising in child emotional and behavioural disorders. Her research has been funded by the GW4 Alliance, ESRC and Guys and St Thomas' Charity. The SHINE research lab is dedicated to understanding the role of environmental factors in shaping risk pathways to child psychopathology, and the translation of models of risk and resilience into school and family-based interventions. Our work is also designed to inform practitioners how to best support adults who children most rely on for their social and emotional well-being: their parents and teachers. 

Dr Allen has a strong commitment to the training and dissemination of evidence-based treatment, which led to the publication of a practitioner textbook: Family-based Intervention for Child and Adolescent Mental Health: A Core Competencies Approach (2021) published by Cambridge University Press, with fellow editors David Hawes (University of Sydney) and Cecilia Essau (University of Roehampton). 

In 2023, Dr Allen edited a special issue on 'Adverse childhood experiences: A developmental psychopathology perspective' for the international journal Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, see here: https://link.springer.com/journal/10802/volumes-and-issues/51-12

Recent awards:

2025    Excellence in Doctoral Supervision Nominee (Finalist)

2025    Springer Nature Author Service Award 

2025    Springer Nature Editorial Contribution Award 

2024    Recognising Excellence Award, University of Bath

2023    ACAMH David Cottrell Education of Child and

            Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) Professionals Award

2021    Voted winner, I’m a Scientist, Get me Out of Here! 

            Public engagement award. 

PhD, MRes and DClinPsy Supervision

Jennifer Allen is available to supervise the following themes in relation to child and adolescent mental health:

• Teacher-child or peer relationships/interaction
• Pubertal timing 
• Parental intimate partner violence (IPV) 
• Positive childhood experiences (PCEs)
• Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
• Parental knowledge and monitoring 
• Assessment - of mental health symptoms or specific constructs such as ACEs, measurement invariance across gender, cultural group, time or informant / multi-informant issues.
• ​​Family or school-based intervention (focused on promoting positive interactions and relationships)

MRes and PhD applicants with an interest in secondary data analysis of Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) data are particularly encouraged to get in contact. The MCS is a British longitudinal cohort study, which began in 2000 and has followed children up to 17 years currently. For more information, see: https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/cls-studies/millennium-cohort-study/