Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong
About us
Grace Letian Lei
Ph.D. student
Grace obtained her Master's degree in psychology from CUHK in 2021. She is now pursuing her PhD under the co-supervision of Prof. Charlene Lam and Prof. Tatia Lee at HKU. She has a broad interest in affective neuroscience. With her master thesis focusing on pleasant touch, she would like to further investigate how people perceive the tactile pleasure when touching companion animals, especially the underling brain activities. Additionally, she is also interested in exploring fear conditioning with both behavioral experiments and neuroimaging.
Helen Yanyao Zhou
Ph.D. student
Yanyao (Helen) is currently a year 1 Ph.D. student at HKU. She obtained her MSc in Psychology: Theory and Research from KU Leuven in 2022 with a magna cum laude before beginning her Ph.D study at HKU. She obtained her BA in the US, after which she worked as a venture capitalist in the biomedical sector and as an AP psychology teacher before her master’s study. At HKU, she is eager to further investigate the mechanisms behind psychiatric disorders, especially mood disorders, to create potent interventions to tackle them. She examined the alteration of cognition (e.g., memory) among the different populations, including patients with epilepsy, stroke, and healthy individuals on the different ends of the autism spectrum prior to joining HKU.
Kirk Minrui Zhu
Mphil student
Minrui obtained his BSocSc in psychology from the University of Hong Kong in 2022. He is a year 1 MPhil student under the supervision of Prof. Charlene. Minrui is passionate about the field of clinical psychology and affective neuroscience. He would like to explore neurological mechanisms of anxiety and depression through fMRI and also desires to develop effective, preferably low-cost, psychological interventions based on findings. In addition, Minrui is an advocator of open science and aims to improve the transparency and replicability of scientific research.
Research interests: Anxiety and depression, neuroimaging (fMRI), psychological interventions, open science
Michelle Y.Y. Tse
PsyD Student
Michelle is a second-year student of Doctor of Psychology. After obtaining her Master of Social Science in Clinical Psychology in The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2011, Michelle has been working as a clinical psychologist in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, a public hospital in Hong Kong. Through clinical practice, she gains interests in neuropsychology, neuroscience and aging. She is currently pursuing her PsyD as a part-time student, with research interests in neuroscience and Alzheimer’s Disease.
Iris W. Y. Wong
PsyD Student
Iris obtained her Master Degree in Clinical Psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2006. She has been working in hospital settings since graduation, with specialization in perinatal psychiatric service for a decade. She is currently a third-year student in PsyD programme, with research interests in perinatal depression, parenting and mother-child attachment relationships.
Luciana Lau
Clinical Psychology Student
Luciana received her BSc (Hon) in Psychology from the University of York and her MSc in Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences from King’s College London prior to joining the University of Hong Kong. She is particularly interested in the clinical population of neurodevelopmental disorders and was awarded the Sackler Prize by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience for her dissertation on neural habituation to emotional faces in males with high functioning ASD. She is also keen to understand the underlying mechanisms of emotional experience and psychopathology.
Research interests: Affective processing, emotion regulation, attentional bias, interpretation bias, psychopathology
Angel Leung
Clinical Psychology Student
Angel holds a master degree of arts in psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a master degree of social work from the University of Hong Kong, and a bachelor degree majoring in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Having worked and served different fields in different cities, Angel has gained diversified and substantial experience in dealing with an educational project in Beijing, conducting investigation on child abuse cases in Singapore and providing counselling services to corporate clients and hospital patients in Hong Kong.
Research interests: Fear and anxiety, workplace psychology, workplace interventions, psychological interventions
Tony Lau, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychology Student
Tony is a PhD graduate in philosophy. His research project in philosophy investigated the relationships between knowledge, beliefs and justification. Currently undertaking clinical psychology training at HKU, he takes immense interest in the intersections between philosophy and clinical psychology. In particular, he is interested in studying the impact of uncertainty (widely discussed in epistemological literature) on general anxiety.
In his spare time, he enjoys playing chess and basketball. He holds the belief that there are strategic similarities between the two games in the form of material and positional imbalances—perhaps this explains his love for them
Candice Kam
Clinical Psychology Student
Candice received her MSocSc in Psychology from the Education University of Hong Kong, and her BEng in Biomedical Engineering. She worked in Queen Mary Hospital supporting research work related to E.A.S.Y. service (early intervention programme for psychosis). She is particularly interested in investigating the association between cognitive bias and subclinical psychopathology.
Research interests: Reasoning bias, jumping-to-conclusion bias, paranoid ideation, conspiracy belief
Wendy Tam
Clinical Psychology Student
Wendy graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor’s degree in Arts (Major: Philosophy and Psychology) and a Master’s degree in Social Sciences (Behavioural Health). Upon graduation, she worked in the university and public hospital in various roles, during which she accumulated substantial experiences working with persons with mental illness. To name a few, as the former project manager of a psychosis research project, Wendy also served as a case manager of adult patients who experienced first episode of psychosis on top of her administrative duties; as a psychology assistant at a public hospital, she collaborated with clinical psychologists to conduct different patient groups, such as mindfulness, relaxation, and emotional regulation groups.
Research interests: Anxiety, cognitive control, mindfulness
Christy Cheung
Clinical Psychology Student
Christy received BSSc (Psychology) degree from CUHK, with First Class Honours. She had working experience in delivering neuropsychological training to children with SEN, prior to joining the University of Hong Kong. Her research interest lies within the relationship between social cognition and clinical psychopathology, as well as non-verbal communication. She is particularly interested in nonverbal synchrony and emotional face processing.
Research interests: Perspective taking, mentalization, affective processing, psychopathology
Yip Wing Hei
Clinical Psychology Student
Hei received his BSocSc (Hons) in Psychology from Hong Kong Shue Yan University. Before joining the current programme, he worked as a Psychology Assistant in Queen Elizabeth Hospital. During which, he served adult and elderly patients who suffered from different medical conditions. He is particularly interested in investigating the relationship between anxiety disorders and cognitive functions.
Research interests: Aging, interpretation bias, attention, anxiety, and neuropsychology
Rebecca Wong
Clinical Psychology Student
Rebecca received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from The Education University of Hong Kong. She has worked as Mental Health Education Officer in NGO, as Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant at local Universities, and as Clinical Psychology Assistant at HA before joining the master's programme.
In her spare time, she enjoyed doing yoga and pole dancing to relieve stress. Through different movements, she was able to connect her mind with body, and express her emotions by these means. Also, she loves reading and writing to organize her thoughts and calm her mind.
Research interests: Trauma, post-traumatic growth, mood and cognition
Daniela Ruth Cavero
Trainee Clinical Psychologist
Daniela received an MSocSc in Psychology from HKU and an MSc in Early Intervention in Psychosis from King's College London. She is currently a first-year trainee clinical psychologist at HKU. She is particularly interested in exploring the associations between childhood trauma and functional outcomes in people with psychosis. In addition, she is also keen to further understand the role of cognition and poor functional outcomes in people with early psychosis, in the hope to identify more targeted interventions that can help improve this unmet need within the early psychosis population.
Peter Lam
Research Assistant
Peter recently graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a BSSc in Psychology. Intending to pursue graduate studies in neuroscience, he is interested in the mechanisms and neural correlates of conditioning and acquisition. He is equally excited about translating the findings to potential implications that inform clinical practice. He believes that combining neuroimaging and behavioral techniques would offer a compelling perspective on important questions within the field.
Zita Wong
Research Intern
Zita is a third-year undergraduate at HKU majoring in Psychology and Neuroscience. She is interested in understanding the neural constructs that contribute to emotions and psychopathology, which help inform treatment and healthy coping methods. Aspiring to practice Clinical Psychology, she values expanding knowledge on the subjective, psychopathological experience since it can facilitate practitioners’ empathy toward the person behind the disorder."
Alvin Ho
Research Intern
Alvin obtained his BSocSci (Psychology) from the City University of Hong Kong and is currently having his MSci (Clinical Psychology) at Utrecht University. He is particularly interested in examining the behavioural manifestations of individuals with anxiety disorders (e.g., attentional bias and coping strategies), as well as the mechanism through which exposure therapy may help alleviate anxiety symptoms. It is his intention to contribute to the understanding of the factors maintaining the psychopathology of individuals with anxiety disorders.
Graduated members
Andy Suen (MSSoc in Psychology)
Joyce Ng (MSSoc in Psychology)
Tiffany Hon (MSSoc in Psychology)
Tiffany Yuen (MSSoc in Psychology)
Winky Ho (MSSoc in Psychology)