I’m Melisa, a PhD student in the PIXIE Lab and SPI Lab at King’s College London’s IoPPN as well as Co-Founder and Co-Editor of Inspire the Mind.

Following my BSc in Neuroscience at the University of Westminster, I completed my MSc in Neuroscience here at the IoPPN alongside my work as a researcher and ITM editor.

This blog has been a fantastic opportunity for me to merge my love of neuroscience with my love of the arts – one of the great beauties of science is the intrinsic presence of art. My articles have focused on how media and mental health interact – specifically, how it can perpetuate and tackle stigma. We use cinema to the tell stories of other people, other times, and other worlds. While we tell these stories, however, we maintain the responsibility to treat them with care and good faith, and that's what I want to emphasise in my articles.

In line with ITM’s goal to make science accessible to the public and improve mental health literacy, I also write articles breaking down research in neuroscience and psychiatry. My aim with these pieces is to invite in those outside of neuroscience who have the eagerness to learn when academic papers oftentimes – albeit unintentionally – shut them out with their jargon and complicated methods.