Sarah completed a double DEC (Diploma of College Studies) in Health Sciences and Music (Jazz Voice) at Marianopolis College followed by a BSc in Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She then completed her MRes in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at UCL followed by a year working as a Postgraduate Research Fellow at Yale University. At Yale, she worked on a project pertaining to the neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal in anxiety disorders. Afterwards, she worked as a project manager for a neuroimaging CRO involved in large clinical trials and as a paediatric sleep consultant for a sleep clinic.

She is interested in research focusing on the impact of early-life adversity on mental health outcomes through the investigation of altered neurocognitive processes. She aims to conduct interdisciplinary work, translating mechanistic findings into feasible and sustainable interventions. Her goal is to contribute to alleviating human suffering linked to adverse childhood events by intervening as early as possible in young individuals' lives and by providing the tools necessary to overcome the impact of adversity. 

Outside of academia, she has a passion for music and has been professionally composing and performing neo-soul and r&b music for over a decade.  

Twitter: @SarahBakirci