Rate My Professor Hayley Young

Professor Hayley Young is a Professor in the School of Psychology at Swansea University. Her research focuses on understanding how nutrition influences cognition, mood and eating behaviour. Specific areas of investigation include the role of dietary carbohydrates and glucoregulation on performance in children, ageing populations and during sleep; the cognitive, affective and cardiovascular consequences of minor changes in hydration; and individual differences in the processes underlying satiety. She has a particular interest in unravelling the interoceptive, autonomic and neural underpinnings of emotion regulation and how diet may impact these processes. Her work utilises methods spanning the social, behavioural and biological sciences.

Professor Young teaches third-year modules in Psychology of Sports and Exercise and Nutrition and Behaviour. She supervises several PhD students on topics including interoception, alexithymia, disordered eating, hydration and glycaemic control. In 2018 she received the Young Scientist Travel Award from the International Life Sciences Institute for work on the influence of hydromineral balance on mood. Her recent publications include studies on dietary patterns and adolescent mental health, the impact of glycaemic load on cognitive performance, and interoceptive processes in relation to eating behaviour and mental health.