After completing her PhD in Psychology in 2010, Sophie von Stumm taught at the University of Chichester (2010-2011), completed an ESRC-funded post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Edinburgh (2011-2012), and lectured at Goldsmiths University of London (2012-2017). She started a post as Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science in September 2017.

In her research, Sophie studies the causes and consequences of individual differences in psychological and behavioural development across the life course. She takes an inter-disciplinary approach to observing behaviour and environments, primarily through the application of new assessment technologies that enable collecting big, high-quality data. Sophie focuses her studies in particular on three areas: (1) the effects of early life environments on children’s language development; (2) the role of personality traits like curiosity and imagination for learning; and (3) the relationship between genome-wide polygenic scores and educational attainment.

Sophie’s work is funded by the British Academy, Wellcome Trust, and the John Templeton Foundation. She has published more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and developed two research smartphone apps. Sophie won the APS Rising Star Award in 2015 and the ISSID Early Career Award in 2013. She is recipient of a Jacobs Foundation Fellowship 2017-2019.