Matthew Iveson

Senior Data Scientist

  • Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences
  • Administrative Data Research Centre Scotland
  • Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology

Contact details

Address

Street

Room F2, Psychology Building

City
7 George Square, Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9JZ

Background

I moved to Edinburgh in 2005, where I completed my undergraduate degree (Psychology), MSc by Research and PhD. 

Since my Masters I have been interested in how cognition changes with age, and how this coincides with physical changes in the brain. During my PhD, run bilaterally between the University of Edinburgh and Suor Orsola Benincasa University (Italy), I gained an appreciation for the contribution of individual differences in demographic factors and general cognitive ability to age-related changes in cognition. After my PhD I  led a research project in Kyoto (Japan) as a JSPS Post-doctoral Fellow.  I returned to Edinburgh in 2016, taking up a position as a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology.

I now work as a Senior Data Scientist on an MRC-funded Mental Health Data Science grant, leading a project which aims to investigate mental health within and between generations by constructing a linked family e-cohort from routinely-collected data sources.

Qualifications

PhD Psychology, Suor Orsola Benincasa University & The University of Edinburgh 2011 – 2015 

MSc by Research Psychology, The University of Edinburgh 2009 – 2010

MA (Hons.) Psychology, The University of Edinburgh 2005 – 2009

Research summary

I am interested in better understanding age-related changes in physical and mental health, and how factors from across the life-course - such as cognitive abilty - can predict these changes.

Current research interests

My current interests are in the contributions of life-course factors to mental health risk, the transmission of mental health risk between individuals, and the differential contributions of individual and shared factors to mental health risk.

Past research interests

I am also interested in cognitive neuroscience more generally, particularly executive functions and working memory and their associations with prefrontal brain systems.

Knowledge exchange

I am involved in several public enagagement activities, including most recently:

  • Public enagagement around the use of NHS data and administrative data in research
  • Public engagement around the value of data linkage studies and e-cohorts
  • Knowledge exchange activities around depression research, including "Big Data Detectives" (Edinburgh Science Festival, 2019)

Project activity

MC_PC_17209; McIntosh AM (PI) 2018-2020; MRC Mental Health Pathfinder Award: “Leveraging routinely collected and linked research data to study the causes and consequences of common mental disorders” - Work Package 1: Mental health within and between generations.