Professor of Developmental Psychology, University of Cambridge

Chief Scientist, Nesta

Professor Jenny Gibson leads the Play and Communication Lab (PacLab) at the Faculty of Education, a team investigating the role of play, language, cognition, and neurodiversity in human development. She is also Chief Scientist at Nesta, an innovation agency for social good, leading its fairer start mission.

Jenny’s research interests lie in the interplay between linguistic and social development from childhood through to adolescence. She studied at University of Manchester where she gained a BSc (Hons) in Speech and Language Therapy, before going on to win ESRC/MRC funding to complete a Master of Research in Psychology followed by a PhD. After her PhD, Jenny went on to do post-doctoral research in child and adolescent mental health in the Department of Developmental Psychiatry, University of Cambridge.

Jenny held a lectureship in Developmental Language and Communication Disorders at the University of East Anglia for one year before coming to the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education as a University Lecturer in Psychology and Education in November 2014.

Jenny is a qualified Speech and Language Therapist and, although she has focused her career mainly on research, she has maintained her clinical registration specialising in assessment and treatment of complex language disorders and autism spectrum conditions.