Meet our lead researcher: Dr Jay Raman.

Dr Jay Raman is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences at UoN and the Founder/Director of the Three Squares Lab. She is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Graduate School of Health-Clinical Psychology, University of Technology Sydney and a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at Western Sydney University. She is a Clinical Psychologist (AHPRA endorsed) and an accredited clinical supervisor from Sydney, Australia with over 20 years of clinical and supervision experience. She has supervised clinical psychology interns and registered psychologists in hospital emergency care, community crisis teams, triage, private practice, university clinics and in outpatient and inpatient settings. In addition to her clinical role, she was also the Manager for Psychology, Counselling and the Discharge Planning departments for Mount Wilga Private Hospital for over 6 years and has held the role of Head of Behavioural Health at a busy bariatric clinic in Sydney and as the Principal Advisor- Research for the MWP and BVP hospitals (part of Ramsay Health Care) in NSW.

Funded by a prestigious Fellowship from the NSW Institute of Psychiatry (2014: AUD 100,000), she was awarded her PhD (Sep 2016), based on a clinical trial funded by the above fellowship. In 2014, she was also offered a highly competitive NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship (AUD 51,539.00). Dr. Raman's PhD is innovative research at the international level on obesity and neurocognition. Dissemination of her innovative cognitive remediation study findings in 2018 has led to a documented paradigm shift in the field. She was recently recognized for high impact research with CSIRO’s 2023 ON Prime award .

Dr. Raman's publications in SciVal/Scopus have been cited 396 times, and citing authors affiliated with 160 institutions in more than 61 countries, She has a H-Index of 10. Two of her publications have been cited in a 2022 Adult Obesity policy report. Collaborators with authors located in 7 countries, including the UK, Norway, Canada and New Zealand. Most of her articles are published in Quartile 1 journals. Dr. Raman’s publications have been mentioned in 30 news stories from the US, UK, Australia and Germany including News Outlets, Bariatric News, Readers Digest and The Medical News. 20 of her publications, are mapped to 3 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals including Good Health & Wellbeing.

Dr. Raman actively contributes to teaching and learning duties and initiatives, research operations, screening and serving on selection panels for postgraduate cohort intakes, HDR supervision and PhD thesis examinations, evaluating PhD confirmation of candidatures, coordinating scientific meetings, and more.  She has successfully coordinated several Professional and Clinical Psychology courses at the School of Psychological Sciences including an Intensive 7-day course and the Adult Psychopathology course for postgraduate Professional and Clinical Psychology students that has a heavy emphasis on translational bench to practice learning. She also serves on the Selection Committee for Research Fellowships at the larger CESE college and the ethics review panel at the School of Psychological Sciences, UON.

While Dr. Raman teaches a broad spectrum of units ranging from research methods to foundational and advanced clinical skills, her goal is to inspire and groom students in the scientist-practitioner model of psychology. Her passion lies in translational research in behavioural health. She continues to practice as a clinician and is connected to the real world through regular bespoke public lectures and media.

At the 3 Squares Eating Behaviours lab, Dr Raman fosters a rich learning environment to her students and aims to encourage scientific curiosity, inspire interest in the field of body image and eating behaviours in individuals living with a high BMI.