Meet The Team
Dr Erica Hepper
Senior Lecturer in Personality/Social Psychology (Principal Investigator)
University of Surrey
​
Erica is a social/personality psychologist who is interested in self-relevant emotions and motivations in social contexts. Her research has included work on various topics, including attachment orientations, narcissism, and close relationships. She has been conducting research on nostalgia since 2010 and is recently focusing on its functioning within relational settings.
​
Professor Constantine Sedikides
Professor of Social Psychology (Co-PI)
University of Southampton
​
Constantine is a social/personality psychologist interested in the self and identity, and their interplay with emotion — particularly nostalgia. He has been researching nostalgia for over two decades, with a current focus on its implications for relational well-being.
​
Web: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5wz5vh/professor-constantine-sedikides​
Professor Tim Wildschut
Professor of Social & Personality Psychology (Co-PI)
University of Southampton
​
Tim's research focuses on nostalgia — the sentimental longing and tender affection for experiences and persons from one’s past. His studies are conducted with clinical, at-risk, and healthy populations across the lifespan and in different cultures.
​
Web: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5wzmpc/professor-tim-wildschut​
Dr Bridget Dibb
Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology (Co-PI)
University of Surrey
​
Bridget is a Health Psychologist interested in well-being and quality of life in both health and illness. Her work focuses on factors that impact well-being, such as stress and stigma. She is also interested in understanding the lived experience of stress and trauma.
​
Dr Gloria Wai Shan Ma
Research Fellow in Social Psychology/Relationship Science
University of Surrey
​​
Gloria is a social psychologist fascinated by how human emotions — especially bivalent ones — influence social processes. She earned her DPhil in Experimental Psychology from the University of Oxford in 2023, where she examined how sharing emotions can serve as a form of interpersonal emotion regulation and how bivalent emotions may help reduce intergroup prejudice and dehumanisation.
​
Dr Imogen Nevard
Research Assistant in Psychology/Qualitative Methods
University of Surrey
​​​​​
Imogen is a research assistant conducting the qualitative component of the project, with a background in social networks and qualitative methodologies. She holds a PhD in social networks in families affected by parental mental illness. Alongside her research, Imogen works as a relationship therapist and trains other therapists in psychosexual and relationship therapy. The dynamics of intimate relationships are at the heart of her research.​