Dr Romany McGuffog

Dr Romany McGuffog has recently completed her Doctor of Philosophy in social psychology at the University of Newcastle under the supervision of A/Prof Mark Rubin, A/Prof Stefania Paolini, and Dr Kylie McIntyre. Her PhD investigated sleep as a mediator of the relation between social class and health across four studies of university students around Australia (as well as students from an Irish university and students from TAFE). Romany's PhD highlighted that improving an individual's sleep could help reduce the impact that being from a lower social class can have on one's mental and physical health. However, it is important that the interventions to improve sleep should be appropriate for people from lower social classes. Obviously, the ultimate aim is to remove social inequality, however; improving sleep is a short term solution.

Romany is currently working on a number of projects, including:

• The relations between social support, dreams, and health
• A comprehensive measure of social class for university students
• The relations between caffeine, sleep, and health

As a Research Officer at Everymind, Romany is also involved in a wide variety of projects concerning mental ill-health prevention and suicide prevention, such as:

• The mental health of small business owners
• Early career teacher attrition
• Evaluation of the Department of Education's guidelines for responding to a student suicide