About

I am an Associate Professor in Psychology. I teach at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, contribute to staff development training sessions, carry out research, encourage and support undergraduate students in developing their research skills via joint staff-student projects and supervise students at all levels, including doctoral students. As a full member of the University Professorial Council (UPC), representing my College (College of Life and Natural Sciences), I am keen to contribute to strategic developments in researcher development designed to enhance sustainable research and innovation at Derby, in particular by acting as a mentor for early career researchers and by peer-reviewing external grant bids. As a UPC member, I am also playing an active role in developing the university’s research ethics processes and guidance. I have been a longstanding member of the Human Sciences Research Ethics Committee.

Research interests

My research applies psychological theories to the study of everyday issues including reading strategies used by monolingual and bilingual students, exam anxiety, alcohol-related aggression, malingering in neuropsychological and forensic settings, suggestibility and behaviour change. My research has been published in peer-reviewed high-quality journals including Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, PLoS ONE, Personality and Individual Differences, The Journal of Pain, International Journal of Psychophysiology, Neuroscience Letters, Language and Cognitive Processes. My research has received external funding by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), SERC/Joint Council Initiative in Cognitive Science/HCI, German Research Foundation (DFG), as well as several University of Derby internal grants supporting a research-inspired curriculum. I have been an occasional reviewer for several leading academic journals. As an experienced doctoral supervisor, I have co-supervised successful PhD projects on rehearsal processes in working memory and EEG coherence, processing of compassionate and critical faces, anxiety and visual attention, and online gambling. 

Recent publications

• McGivern, P., Hussain, Z., Lipka, S., & Stupple, E. (2019). The impact of pop-up warning messages of losses on expenditure in a simulated game of roulette: A pilot Study. BMC Public Health, 19:822. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7191-5
• Kelly, L., Maratos, F. A., Lipka, S., & Croker, S. (2016). Attentional Bias towards threatening and neutral facial expressions in high trait anxious children. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 7(3), 343-359. http://dx.doi.org/10.5127/jep.052915
• McEwan, K., Gilbert, P., Dandeneau, S., Lipka, S., Maratos, F., Paterson, K.B., & Baldwin, M. (2014). Facial expressions depicting compassionate and critical emotions: The development and validation of a new emotional face stimulus set. PloS ONE 9(2): e88783. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0088783
• Drake, K. E., Lipka, S., Smith, C. & Egan, V. (2013). The effect of cognitive load on faking suggestibility on the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 845-849. (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.12.011
• Brown, S., Lipka, S., Coyne, S., Qualter, P., Barlow, A., & Taylor, P. (2011). Implicit Alcohol-Aggression Scripts and Alcohol-Related Aggression on a Laboratory Task in 11-14 Year-Old Adolescents. Aggressive Behavior, 37(5),430-439. DOI: 10.1002/ab.2040
• Dohrenbusch, R., Buchanan, H., Lipka, S., & Ott, R. (2008). Impact of chronic somatoform and osteoarthritis pain on conscious and preconscious cognitive processing. The Journal of Pain, 9 (10),927-939. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2008.05.004
• Kopp, F., Schroeger, E., & Lipka, S. (2006). Synchronized brain activity during rehearsal and short-term memory disruption by irrelevant speech is affected by recall mode. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 61, 188-203
• Dohrenbusch, R., & Lipka, S. (2006). Assessing and predicting supervisors' evaluations of psychotherapists. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 19(4),395-414
• Kopp, F., Schroeger, E., & Lipka, S. (2004). Neural networks engaged in short-term memory rehearsal are disrupted by irrelevant speech in human subjects. Neuroscience Letters, 354 (1), 42-45
• Lipka, S. (2002). Reading sentences with a Late Closure ambiguity: Does semantic information help? Language and Cognitive Processes, 17 (3), 271-298
• Lipka, S., Kopp, F., & Pechmann, T. (2000). Referential context effects for subject/object relative-clause ambiguities: The role of the Reading Span. In E. Schroeger, A. Mecklinger, & A. D. Friederici (Eds.), Working on working memory. Leipzig: Leipzig University Press, pp. 121-138

Professional interests

I am interested in language and communication in all shapes and forms – how children acquire it, developmental language disorders, bilingualism, the complex processes going on when people read, and how language influences our emotions and behaviour. I am also interested in doctoral pedagogy, as I have led the Doctoral Research Supervisor Training programme at the University of Derby for many years. I believe that supporting supervisors in developing their skills and confidence has a positive impact on the quality of doctoral supervision, both in terms of timely doctoral completion rates as well as improved student and supervisor satisfaction and wellbeing. 

Qualifications

• Diplompsychologie (equivalent to an MSc in Psychology), University of Bonn, Germany
• MSc Human Communication Studies, Institute of Neurology, University of London and National Hospitals College of Speech Sciences, University of London
• PhD Psychology, University College London
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)

Recent conferences

• Lipka, S. & Smyth, M. (2019). Bridging the knowledge – practice gap: Improving the quality of doctoral research supervision, student performance and wellbeing. Poster presented at 5th CBC Conference 2019 - Behaviour Change for Health: Digital and other Innovative Methods, 9-10 April, 2019, London

• Karousi, A., Bignell, S., Barnes, C., & Lipka, S. (2018). Parental understanding based autism profiler for children and young adults. Poster presented at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference 2018, 02-04 May 2018, Nottingham

• Gale, M., Lipka, S. & Smith, H. (2018). Dyslexia, hoarding and executive function. Poster presented at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference 2018, 02-04 May 2018, Nottingham

• Payne, E., & Lipka, S. (2018). Dual-tasking, authorial confidence and inadvertent plagiarism among
  L1 and L2 speakers. Poster presented at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference 2018, 02-04 May 2018, Nottingham

• Lipka, S. (2018). Complex interventions - Exploring the application of behaviour change theory to doctoral supervisor training. Poster presented at Centre for Behaviour Change Digital Health Conference 2018: Behaviour Change for Health: Digital and Beyond, 21-22 Feb 2018. London

• Lipka, S. (2017). Development programmes for new doctoral supervisors – do they work? Talk presented at Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference 2017: New outlooks on the development of researchers in a changed landscape: pedagogy and theory, 12^th October 2017, University of Leeds, UK

• Lipka, S. (2017). How to build good supervisory relationships. Talk presented at the annual Derby Learning and Teaching Conference, Buxton, 3rd July 2017

• Lipka, S. (2017). Three insights gained – Delivering doctoral supervision training. Talk presented at Doctoral Supervision Symposium: Trust and ‘Doctorateness', 15 February 2017. University of Bristol, UK

• Lipka, S. & Clarke, L. (2014). Effects of time pressure and maths anxiety on solving mental arithmetic problems. Talk presented at BPS Cognitive Section Annual Conference, 2nd to 5th September 2014, Nottingham Trent University

• Kelly, L. C., Lipka, S., & Maratos, F. A. (2014, July). The effects of anxiety on temporal attention for emotive and neutral faces in children. Talk presented at 35th International Conference of the Stress and Anxiety Research (STAR) Society, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Experience in industry

In collaboration with colleagues, I am currently setting up consultancy work with a regional train company with the aim to support them in their health & safety trainings.

In the media

I have done interviews with BBC Radio Derby.

International experience

I have inside knowledge of the German university system, from both a student and staff perspective. I have a particular interest in supporting international students.

Teaching responsibilities

I lead and teach on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in the areas of cognitive and developmental psychology. From 2014 to 2019, I was the Programme Leader of the MSc Behaviour Change, which promotes the application of psychology to behaviour change interventions in areas such as health and wellbeing, work or the environment. The course is open to part-time mature students who work in industry or charitable sectors. I still very much enjoy teaching and supervising students on this programme. I also coordinate and teach on the Research Supervisor Training programme offered to doctoral supervisors across the university.

Additional interests and activities

Yoga, dance, gardening and travelling in France - not necessarily in this order!

Courses

• Behaviour Change (incorporating PG Dip/PG Cert) MSc