Mel McKendrick

Background

About Mel McKendrick

I am a Chartered Psychologist, CEO of Optomize Ltd. and Assiociate Professor in Psychology at Heriot-Watt University, where I am the Capability Lead for the for Digital Mental Health and Neurodevelopmental/Degenerative Disorder theme in the Global Research Institute for Health and Care Technologies and the Senior Postgraduate Programmes Director for Psychology. My research interests include social anxiety, social cognition, emotion, face processing, attention, learning and training. I have 16 years of experience in eye tracking research and working in fields including social perception, commercial prototype testing, web tracking, advertising, transport and medical applications with a focus on real world eye tracking. I work across disciplines with clinicians, academics, SMEs and wider industry to develop problem-based solutions for social and performance processing. She is the Founding Director of SPECTRA Labs (Simulation, Performance, Evaluation, Cognition, Translational Research, Anxiety), which includes several subject specific labs. • The Social Training and Anxiety Research (STAR) Lab investigates cognitive biases in social perception using video, eye movements and other sensory metrics, verbal reports and experimental procedures to identify cognitive mechanisms associated with social anxiety and confidence. • The Mental Illness & Neurodiverse Digital (MIND) Lab aims to facilitate early diagnosis and more personalised treatment of mental health difficulties by establishing illness patterns across the lifespan from developmental disorders, child and adolescent mental illness, adult mental illness and neurodegenerative diseases. • The Face perception, Affect, Cognition & Emotion (FACE) Lab aims to investigate cognitive and attentional biases in the way in which we process faces. • The Medical Education Lab (MEL) works across disciplines bringing together clinicians, academics and SMEs to develop problem-based solutions for medical training. Technologies include digital tools for Med x (Virtual, augmented and mixed realities); haptics; eye-tracking; 3D object recognition; data capture systems; robotics; gaming and visualisation technologies. https://spectra.site.hw.ac.uk I am the founder and CEO of Optomize Ltd, which provides eye-tracking and human factors research services, prototype testing and software solutions for medical training. Optomize was awarded a Scottish Enterprise SMART Grant in 2015 match funded by the Gabriel Investment Syndicate and began trading in 2018.