Meg Sheppard is a second-year part-time PhD student. Her research focuses on the influence of neuromodulators in structural brain changes associated with early life stress, particularly focusing on the amygdala. She uses large datasets including the UKBiobank, IMAGEN consortium and the Allen Human Brain Atlas. Her research specifically uses behavioural, neuroimaging and gene expression data. 

She has presented her findings at the Organisation of Human Brain Mapping's (OHBM) annual conferences in 2023, 2024 and 2024 in Montreal, Seoul and Brisbane respectively. She has also presented her work at national conferences including the British Neuroscience Association's Festival of Neuroscience in 2025 and the British Society for Population Studies conference in 2025. From 2023-2025, Meg is also volunteering as the social media and communications manager for OHBM's Student and Postdoc SIG to encourage international early-career researcher collaboration. Meg also acts as the PGR School Representative for the School of Health Sciences and as a Divisional Representative for the Division of Psychology, Communication, and Human Neuroscience. 

Meg is also a part-time Graduate Teaching Assistant on the BSc Psychology course. For this, she won the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award 2024, nominated by the students. In addition, Meg is also passionate about science communication. She often volunteers for outreach days to encourage disadvantaged primary, secondary and sixth-form students to attend university. She helps organise these outreach events alongside the Neuroimaging Dream Team Volunteering group. She helped organise the Pint of Science Festival 2024 as part of the Beautiful Minds team.