Lorna Hardy is a research assistant working on the project ‘Student Involvement in delivering better patient experience in the NHS’, under Professor Victoria Tischler. This project uses mixed methods to explore and assess the impact of activities developed and implemented by Royal Central School of Speech and Drama students on older people’s wards in an NHS Trust.

Lorna completed her PhD at the University of Exeter in 2018. Her PhD research focused on the relationship between negative affect and hazardous alcohol use: identifying mechanisms underpinning this relationship and developing brief interventions. Since completing her PhD, Lorna has worked as a postdoctoral research associate on the KARE trial, a multi-site project evaluating a novel combination of ketamine and psychological therapy for treatment of alcohol dependence. She has also worked as an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Exeter on a project investigating the relationship between environmental deprivation and alcohol use in young people.