Dr. Leah Johnstone
UCFB Manchester
Associate Dean
Knowledge Exchange and Research and Senior Lecturer
After completing a degree in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Nottingham, Leah went to Bangor University and obtained an MSc in Clinical Neuropsychology in 2012 and a PhD in Neuropsychology in 2015. Since then Leah has worked in research and teaching roles at Bangor University and the University of East Anglia, before joining UCFB in 2017.
She has worked on a range of research projects with academic and industry partners, developing a broad skillset of research project design expertise using a variety of quantitative research methods (EEG, fMRI, tDCS, visual half-field tests, dichotic listening tests, survey, observation, motion tracking).
Leah develops and implements knowledge exchange and research strategy at UCFB. Using her 10+ years of experience teaching research methods / project modules at universities, Leah also has significant responsibility for developing and monitoring our research training provision, for both students and academic staff.
Area of expertise
- Research design
- Quantitative data analysis
- Research ethics
- Psychology
- Performance analysis
- Limb preference
- Motor control
Industry expertise
- Research consultant (leading and completing projects for partners such as Qatar2022 and the English Football League)
- Research project design, management, and operation
- Critical analysis expertise
Leah coordinates and oversees research methods and research project modules at both an undergraduate and postgraduate level. Other teaching interests include biological and cognitive psychology.
She has expertise and interest in the process of research design itself, allowing for involvement in a wide variety of project topics. Her personal research interests involve brain and body asymmetries, such as hand/foot preferences, and their relationship to the location of functions in the brain, such as language.
- BSc Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience;
- MSc Foundations of Clinical Neuropsychology;
- PhD Psychology;
- PGCert Higher Education
- British Psychological Society Chartered Membership.
- Member of the Experimental Psychology Society.
Academic Article Examples
- Karlsson, E.M., Johnstone, L.T., & Carey, D.P. (2022). Reciprocal or independent hemispheric specializations: Evidence from cerebral dominance for fluency, faces, and bodies in right-and left-handers. Psychology & Neuroscience, 15(2), 89.
- Johnstone, L. T., Karlsson, E. M., & Carey, D. P. (2021). Left handers are less lateralised than right handers for both left and right hemispheric functions. Cerebral Cortex, 31(8), 3780-3787.
- Johnstone, L. T., Karlsson, E. M., & Carey, D. P. (2020). The validity and reliability of quantifying hemispheric specialisation using fMRI: Evidence from left and right handers on three different cerebral asymmetries. Neuropsychologia, 107331.
- Karlsson, E. M., Johnstone, L. T., & Carey, D. P. (2019). The depth and breadth of multiple perceptual asymmetries in right handers and non-right handers. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 24(6), 707-739.
Industry Examples