Laura Vuillier leads a programme of research focused on the role of emotions in mental health and illness, with a particular emphasis on eating disorders and intervention development and evaluation.
Laura’s research examines how beliefs about emotions, emotion identification, and emotion regulation contribute to the development and maintenance of eating disorders, and how targeting these processes through emotion‑focused interventions can support recovery.
Laura completed her PhD in Psychology, Education and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge in 2014. She subsequently worked as a post‑doctoral researcher in the Cambridge Prosociality and Well‑Being Lab, where she investigated the role of emotions in psychological wellbeing, before working as a Principal Academic at Bournemouth University between 2016 and 2026.
She has received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust to investigate the neural bases of emotion processing and regulation in eating disorders using EEG, and from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to develop and evaluate an emotion‑based intervention to help people with eating disorders better understand and manage difficult emotions during treatment waiting periods.
Alongside her work on eating disorders, Laura has an active research stream examining the links between autism and eating disorders, as well as the emotional and cognitive mechanisms underlying orthorexia nervosa.
Laura is committed to public engagement and regularly disseminates her research through the media, including co‑developing an emotion and wellbeing series for BBC Radio Solent, and developing videos for parents of children with ARFID in collaboration with ARFID awareness.
She welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in researching emotions, emotion regulation, and emotion‑focused interventions in eating disorders and other mental health conditions.
