The PsyLife group are thrilled that group PhD student Hannah Jongsma passed her viva at the University of Cambridge last week, with a recommendation that she be awarded a PhD following (just two) minor corrections to her thesis. In her thesis, entitled The role of the social environment in explaining variance in incidence of psychosis and higher rates of disorder in minorities,  Dr Jongsma explored variation in the incidence and risk of psychotic disorders using epidemiological data from the EU-GEI study. In particular she was interested in understanding variation in incidence by place, and last month published the first output from her thesis in JAMA Psychiatry, in a paper exploring reasons for 10-fold variation in rates of psychotic disorder across 17 centres in the EU-GEI study . She was also interested in understanding variation by ethnicity and migrant status, exploring the roles that psychosocial disadvantage and social distance played on these factors. 

We would like to congratulate Dr Jonsgma on her success, and wish her the best of luck in her future career. Dr Jonsgma will continue as a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, and we look forward to seeing more outputs published from her PhD over the next year or so. 

Well done!

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