PhD Studentship: Stress Reactivity and Mental Health in Young People: How Do We Measure it, and Can We Fix it when it Goes Wrong?

Overview

The Psychology department at the University of Bath is offering a PhD studentship on stress reactivity and mental health in young people, asking how it can be measured and whether it can be improved when it goes wrong. Stress reactivity describes how a person responds to everyday stress in their body, thoughts and feelings. Young people who have lived through difficult events often struggle with this as they grow up, which makes them more vulnerable to mental health difficulties in adolescence and early adulthood. The project looks at ways of helping them with stress reactivity as a way to prevent such difficulties.

There is no accepted gold standard for measuring stress reactivity. The research group has piloted wearable technology, the U-RHYTHM device, that measures cortisol and other biomarkers by microdialysis without taking blood, so people can go about their normal lives. Used alongside other measures and experience sampling, it will help model how physiological, psychological and behavioural stress responses relate. The first part of the PhD addresses measurement issues to build consensus on the most robust measures, and the second part pilots small-scale interventions, such as exercise or mindfulness, that might change dysregulated stress responses in at-risk young people aged 16 to 25.

The key aims are to test the feasibility of measuring ambulatory cortisol with the device in this group, to examine how far different measures of stress reactivity agree, and to determine whether psychological or behavioural interventions could credibly modify dysregulated responses.

What you get

The studentship pays from £21,805 per year, with up to £2,000 a year for research costs and training plus £300 a year for travel or conference attendance. The supervisory team is Professor Pamela Jacobsen, Professor Sarah Halligan and Professor James Betts at Bath and Dr Thomas Upton at the University of Bristol. The student will be based in the NIHR Mental Health Research Group at Bath, with strong links to Exeter and Bristol, within a wider team studying how to improve outcomes for young people exposed to childhood adversity.

Key dates

The closing date is 21 October 2026.