Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, UK, where she leads the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group. Her research explores how the social brain develops during adolescence, focusing on social cognition, peer influence, risk-taking and sensitivity to social context.

She advises government departments and has published more than 250 scientific papers. She has mentored numerous early-career researchers and received several international awards for her work. Her honours include election as an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Fellow of the American Association for Psychological Science, the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society.

Her book Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain won the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize in 2018 and the British Psychological Society Book Award in 2020. It was also named Book of the Year at the 2018 Hay Festival. Her TED Talk on the teenage brain has attracted millions of views worldwide.