Dr Ishita Chowdhury

I am a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey. I primarily teach Statistics and Research Methods at undergraduate and masters levels. I also teach on several other modules such as Developmental Psychology, Biological Psychology, and Neurodevelopmental Conditions. Additionally, I also hold the roles of academic and personal tutor, and placement supervisor. I supervise both undergraduate and masters dissertations.

I completed my PhD at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in 2023, and before that I obtained a Masters Degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from the same department. I hold a Masters in Clinical Psychology from Amity University in India and a Bachelors Degree in Psychology from the University of Kent, Canterbury.

My area of expertise broadly lies in social cognition, with a focus on autism. My current research focuses on deception detection and production, how these abilities are affected by other cognitive processes like mentalizing, and how these develop both in typically developing and atypical populations. I am also interested in the Double Empathy Problem, which is phenomenon that has gained traction in the last decade as an alternative to the deficit-based approaches to autism.