Virginia joined Roehampton in 2021. Her specialisms are primarily in social and developmental psychology. Her recent work (funded by ESRC) involved the Growing Up Bilingual project, which she started in 2018 at the University of East London, where she was based, and ran until 2022. The project collaborated with colleagues from Education and partnered with schools through the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRCSE). The project has been tracking the language proficiency/use and social, cognitive and educational outcomes of bilingual children who attend complementary (language) schooling and those who do not.

GUB Project website

Virginia's research background has focused on social group (i.e., ethnic, national, gender, linguistic, religious) differences and identities, intergroup processes (e.g., stereotyping, attitudes, behaviour) and their impact on psychological outcomes. She has supervised projects in various areas concerning diversity issues including cross-cultural variations in social cognition, students' wellbeing, children's sport participation during the 2012 London Olympics, and social lives of young virtual gamers. Recently she was successful at two BPS funding awards: Research Assistantship (dual-heritage young people's identity and psychosocial adjustment, 2020-21); Research Seminar Competition (Growing up bilingual: Researcher-practitioner synergies, 2021-22).

Researchgate for publications

Virginia became the co-convenor for the recently BPS-accredited MSc Psychology in September 2021. She also convenes its Dissertation (research project) module and teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (including supervision for: MA in Integrative Counselling & Psychotherapy for Children, Adolescents & Families; and Doctorate in Counselling Psychology). She co-authored the textbook Developmental Psychology, with two editions and an Italian edition, published by Pearson.

To conduct Virginia, please email: virginia.lam@roehampton.ac.uk