Sarah Cassidy is the lead researcher in the mental health in autism research program and is a lecturer in the School of Psychology, University of Nottingham. Sarah’s ground breaking research discovered high rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviours in autistic people. Since then, Sarah has worked to ensure that the autistic community has a voice in setting priorities for suicide prevention research, policy and practice. The International Society for Autism Research and the leading autism research charity Autistica have honoured Sarah for her dedication to meaningfully involving autistic people and their families in suicide prevention research and policy. Her research has led to service providers and policy makers worldwide acknowledging autistic people a high-risk group for suicide. Her research, co-produced with autistic people, has successfully developed new methods to enable researchers and clinicians to better identify, understand and prevent suicide in autism. Her research and policy work are supported by grants from the ESRC, NIHR, Autistica and INSAR. Sarah completed her PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2012. She completed a post-doc at the Autism Research Centre University of Cambridge, and went on to form a research group at Coventry University, before re-joining Nottingham as a lecturer in October 2017. |