My name is Ryan and I'm a PhD student based at the University of Manchester. My project incorporates longitudinal quantitative methods and neuroimaging techniques such as functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging, to study the potential influence of early adversity on individual cognitive and neurodevelopmental trajectories - and how these might relate to emerging mental illness in adolescence.
I decided to attend the COORDINATE summer school on trajectory analysis to build upon my skills in R, and broaden my understanding of longitudinal analysis techniques which might be applicable to my own research. I found the introductory seminars on quantitative longitudinal methods particularly useful, especially the visual explanations of why we should account for nested data structures and individual variation.
The interactive programming workshops were engaging, I liked that we could complete the tasks at our own pace and that we could keep copies of the code for future reference. Although I probably won’t use sequence analysis as part of my PhD research, I can see it being useful for mental health researchers who work with qualitative data. I had never heard of sequence analysis prior to the workshop and learned a great deal during the interactive component of the course.
The greatest takeaway from the course was meeting so many researchers working in different fields, different countries and different stages in their academic career. I’ve made some good friends to keep in touch with, and enjoyed spending some time in Barcelona to see the sights and enjoy the sun, which rarely makes an appearance in the UK.
Ryan Shepherd
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