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Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

FRS FBA FMedSci FRSB CPsychol
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, University College London.jpg
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore speaking at the Latitude Festival in 2015
Born (1974-08-11) 11 August 1974 (age 50)
Cambridge, England
Education Oxford High School, England
Alma mater
Children 2
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions University of Cambridge
University College London
Thesis Recognising the sensory consequences of one's own actions (2000)
Doctoral advisor

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (born August 11, 1974) is a leading scientist who studies the brain. She is a professor of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. She also helps lead a special program about the brain at University College London. Her work focuses on how the brain grows and changes, especially during the teenage years.

Becoming a Brain Scientist

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore was born in Cambridge, England. She went to Oxford High School, England for her early education. Later, she studied at the University of Oxford. In 1996, she earned a degree in experimental psychology. This means she studied how the mind works by doing experiments.

She continued her studies at University College London. In 2000, she earned her PhD, which is a very high degree. Her research was about how our brains understand what happens when we move.

Discovering How Teen Brains Work

After getting her PhD, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore worked as a research fellow in France. She studied how our brains figure out cause and effect. She then returned to London to continue her important research.

She loves to share science with everyone. She often gives talks at schools and public events. She even helped with a BBC TV series called The Human Mind. She also wrote a book about how the brain learns, especially for education.

Professor Blakemore's main research looks at how teenagers' brains develop. She studies how teens make decisions and understand social situations. Her work helps us understand why teenagers sometimes act differently. She is also part of groups that help improve science education.

Awards and Special Recognitions

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore has received many awards for her amazing work. In 2001, she won an award for her PhD research. In 2006, she received the Spearman Medal for her early career research.

In 2013, she was given the Rosalind Franklin Award. This award celebrates women in science and engineering. She also won the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2015. This prize is for research that helps young people.

In 2018, she became a Fellow of the British Academy. This is a great honor for people who study human sciences. She also won the Royal Society Prize for Science Books for her book, Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain. This book explains her research on the teenage brain in an easy-to-understand way.

In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2024, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society. These are very high honors for scientists in the UK.

About Her Life

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is the daughter of another famous scientist, Colin Blakemore. She has two sons.

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