Francesca Happé
British neuroscientist
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Happé has stated that her grandfather worked as a scientist for Technicolor, and "made some real innovations" and that her parents always encouraged her to "ask questions".
Happé read Experimental Psychology at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in the mid-1980s and was inspired about autism by the lectures she attended as an undergraduate. Through her tutor she was able to join a research project led by Neil O'Connor and Beate Hermelin about autism during a summer vacation. She planned to take a PhD at Oxford, but was directed to meet Uta Frith. This led to a change in the course of her life so that she studied for a PhD related to autism at University College London supervised by Frith and supported by a Medical Research Council Studentship at the Cognitive Development Unit.
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Career and research
From 1991 to 1995 Happé worked at the MRC Cognitive Development Unit, before spending a year at the Department of Psychology and Aphasia Research College, Boston College in the USA. Since 1995, she has been employed at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, first as Senior Scientist in Cognitive Psychology (1996-2000), then Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience (2000-2008) and finally Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience since 2008. She was the Director of the MRC SGDP Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (2012-2020). She co-leads the ReSpect Lab at King's College London with Gavin R. Stewart.
Her work explores how autistic people understand the world. Two significant parts are the discovery that autistic people and their neurotypical relatives may have increased attention to detail and that women and men experience autism differently. She is also interested in their mental health and the consequences of aging. She has used a wide range of methods to demonstrate these aspects, including studies of twins, genetics, the effects of strokes and functional imaging methods as well as traditional psychological approaches. Happé has supervised over 30 doctoral students, including Naomi Fisher (2002), Essi Viding (2004), Gregory L. Wallace (2006), Elizabeth O'Nions (2012), Lucy Livingston (2020) and Gavin R. Stewart (2021).
Her work has been funded by the Wellcome Trust, MRC, Economic and Social Research Council and Autism Speaks.
Happé has been President (2013–15) and a Board Member (2012–16) of the International Society for Autism Research, and she has been a member of the National Autistic Society's "Autism in Maturity" Advisory Group since 2011. From 2013 - 2015 she was President of the International Society for Autism Research. She has several editorial roles, including joint Editor for Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2000-2006), editorial board member of Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2001-2010) and Mind and Language.
Happé was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to the study of autism.