Andrea is the Director and Academic Lead of the Awen Institute. She has a multi-disciplinary academic background graduating from Bristol University with an Honours Degree in Psychology, Comparative Anatomy and Zoology and a PhD in Visual processing in Alzheimer’s disease, and from Oxford University with a Masters degree in Evidence-based Health Care. Andrea also qualified from The Christie Hospital as a State Registered Senior Radiographer and spent some time as a Clinical Tutor in Radiotherapy and is an elected Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Andrea is particularly interested in the functional integrity of vision and visual attention-related processing in individuals living with various aetiologies of dementia and mild and subjective cognitive decline and has successfully directed numerous research projects in this area with grant income of over a million pounds. Upon arrival at Swansea University Andrea set up the Dementia Research Group within the Department of Psychology.

Andrea works primarily in the Centre for Innovative Ageing and for the College of Human and Health Sciences and has continuing links with the Department of Psychology. She is part of the CADR Network, is a member of The Biomedical Board of the Alzheimer’s Society, has very close links with the BRACE-Alzheimer’s Charity and is a Senior Editor of The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.