South West & South Wales Eating Disorder Research Network (SWEDNET)
About us
We are a muti-disciplinary network of researchers from across universities and organisations in the Southwest of England and South Wales, involved in high quality, impactful research into eating disorders and disordered eating. Our Vision is to act as a collaborative, supportive, inclusive, and impactful network in order to:-Foster interdisciplinary collaborations
-Builds research capacity and diversity in the region
-Support innovative methodologies and underrepresented groups
-Amplify real-world impact across clinical, policy, and lived experience
-Support researcher connections and development, in what can be an isolated specialist fieldThe formation from the network was supported by a Development Award from the GW4. We now continue to meet regularly and communicate to support and learn from each other, and develop projects and collaborations.If you are a researcher working in this area, and you would like to connect up with us, please do get in touch.
People
Dr Jasmin Langdon-Daly, (Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist, University of Bath) specialises clinically in work with people with eating disorders, and children and young people, using a range of psychological approaches. Her research focusses on psychological treatments for eating disorders, effective therapist behaviours, prevention and early intervention in families, and the impact of ‘health’/weight-related messaging and policies.Dr Laura Vuillier is a Senior Lecturer at Southampton University working on emotional functioning in eating disorders. Her research focuses on understanding how different stages of an emotional experience - from identifying emotions to implementing regulation strategies - contribute to the development and maintenance of eating disorders. She is particularly interested in translating this knowledge into video based interventions, including the development of the FEEL-ED toolkit to support individuals with bulimic type eating disorders (including BN and BED).
Tamsin Newlove-Delgado is Associate Professor in Child Public Mental Health at the University of Exeter and Director of Exeter's Children and Young People's Mental Health Research Collaboration (ChYMe). She is an epidemiologist and health services researcher with a background in psychiatry and public health medicine, and worked on the eating disorders modules of England's national child mental health surveys. Her research focusses on how we can use data to understand more about the needs and service contacts of children and young people with eating difficulties. She is also interested in growing capacity in eating disorders research in the region.
Maddy Greville-Harris is a Senior Lecturer at University of Exeter and a Clinical Psychologist. She works clinically providing assessments, consultations and training to support children with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). Her research focuses on overlooked disordered eating styles and less understood eating disorders, such as experiences of Orthorexia Nervosa and potential risk factors for orthorexic eating difficulties. She is interested in creating accessible early intervention resources and is currently working on a project co-developing a video-based compassion based psychoeducational intervention for parents of children with ARFID.Dr Laura Chapman is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol. She uses qualitative methods to explore the lived experiences of people with eating disorders, with a view to informing innovative approaches to eating disorder prevention and treatment. She has a particular interest in intergenerational transmission, and understanding the experiences and support needs of parents who have eating disorders. In her current role at the University of Bristol she is working on a project developing novel virtual reality interventions to support people with eating disorders, using the person-based approach.Prof. Natalia Lawrence is in the Psychology department at the University of Exeter. Her research examines what drives food choices and eating behaviour and how these processes can be changed to support healthier and more sustainable diets. Her research focuses on overeating and has been applied to binge eating disorders. She has developed and tested interventions targeting impulsive eating tendences in individuals, in particular food response inhibition training delivered through her Food Trainer app . She also conducts research on widely used existing interventions, such as Veganuary to reduce meat intake and changes to the food environment, such as changing defaults in catering.Dr Phaedra Longhurst (she/they) is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research, UWE. Based on her lived experience as an AuDHD individual, Phaedra’s research focuses on the promotion of positive body image, embodiment, intuitive eating, and overall well-being across marginalised communities, including neurodivergent and disabled populations. Phaedra's work takes a neurodiversity-affirming approach to psychological research, with interests in challenging neuronormative, ableist assumptions and developing inclusive approaches through co-production. She was awarded the Seymour Fisher Outstanding Body Image Dissertation Award in 2025 for her doctoral research and is an Editorial Board Member for Body Image.Mia Morgan is a postdoctoral researcher in the Disorders of Eating and Body Image Research Group, at the University of Bath. Her research to date has centred around co-designing accessible digital interventions for the prevention and treatment of disordered eating. Mia’s PhD (Nature Connectedness Research Group, University of Derby) focused on understanding how nature-based approaches can support people experiencing disordered eating and developing a digital self-help nature connectedness intervention for people experiencing disordered eating in collaboration with people with lived experience and other key stakeholders. She is very interested in continuing work in this area and trying to encourage the implementation of nature-based approaches into disordered eating care. She has also worked as a research assistant within the NHS on projects that aimed to improve mental health services. Within her current role, Mia is working alongside Melissa Atkinson on the BOOST project. This Medical Research Foundation–funded project aims to codesign, and feasibility test a package of school‑based digital microinterventions designed to support the prevention of mental health difficulties (disordered eating, anxiety, depression) in adolescents.Dr Christine Ramsey-Wade works as an Associate Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). She is currently working as the Interim Deputy Director of the Centre for Appearance Research, and she also serves as the Academic Director of the Eating Disorders Health Integration Team with Bristol Health Partners. She supervises doctoral eating disorder doctoral research, teaches mindful eating interventions, and works clinically with people in recovery. Her research focuses on arts-based (poetry, creative writing and reading), digital and mindfulness-based interventions for both prevention and treatment.Dr Akansha Naraindas is a cognitive psychology researcher whose interests span body image, women’s health, eating disorders, and neuroscience. Her research examines how internal bodily processes, particularly interoception, shape body image and disordered eating.Her methodological expertise includes large-scale longitudinal datasets, experimental paradigms, virtual reality, and emerging neurophysiological approaches to identify modifiable mechanisms underlying body image and eating behaviours. She also has particular expertise in advanced statistical modelling, including longitudinal and network analyses. In her current postdoctoral research, she investigates longitudinal associations between food insecurity and eating-disorder pathology using large UK cohort datasets. Akansha is committed to producing research with meaningful real-world impact through co-production with lived-experience groups and collaboration with clinical and public health partners, with a particular focus on improving outcomes for underserved populations.News, updates, publications and projectsGet in touch
You can contact any member of the group directly through their links above. For more information or to join the network, contact the current group chair – Alice Garrood, University of Exeter, below.