Professor Yulia Kovas

Research in bio-psycho-social factors in development; aetiology of individual differences; accessible genetics.

Staff details

Professor Yulia Kovas

Position

Professor Emeritus

Department

Psychology

Email

y.kovas (@gold.ac.uk)

Yulia Kovas is Professor of Genetics and Psychology. She is visiting Professor at King's College London, where she collaborates with the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS; https://www.teds.ac.uk/) on research into the aetiology of individual differences. She is Visiting Professor at several international universities, including New York University, Global Education Oregon, AIFS, Hult International Business School. She directs InLab (http://tagc.world/inlab/). Yulia served for many years as Chair of Psychology Ethics Committee and advised ethics committees at many international institutions. She served as Director of research for Psychology and is currently Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. She is co-founder of The Accessible Genetics Consortium that aims to raise genetic literacy and promote beneficial use of genetic information. Yulia is research lead/advisor to many research projects and laboratories.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD Behavioural Genetics, King's College London. 2007
  • MSc in Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry. King's College London. 2004
  • BSc Honours in Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London 2003
  • 5 year degree (BA and MA) in Russian Philology, World Literature and Pedagogics. Teaching qualification. Herzen State Pedagogical University. 1996

Research interests

The goal of Yulia’s research is to provide insights into the development of individual differences in cognitive abilities, emotional and motivational processes, academic achievement, well-being - contributing to more personalised educational approaches, better education experience for all learners, and greater wellbeing. Her research also aims to enhance scientific literacy, in particular to help people to extract the most benefits from genetic advances.

Individual differences
Education and learning
Cognition, emotion and personality
Learning problems
Giftedness
Mathematical, language and spatial ability
Creativity
Behavioural genetics
Cognitive Sciences and Neuroscience
Cross-cultural research (e.g., the U.K., EU, U.S., Canada, China, Japan, Russia, Kyrgyzia, Nigeria, Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia).
Societal implications of genetics.
Psychology, genetics, business and law.
Interdisciplinary projects.
Examples of current projects:
Spatial and Mathematical ability and performance (collaborating with Beijing Normal University, Ohio State University and other leading universities)
Genetics of Spatial Ability.
Educational Genetics
Raising genetic literacy (international project in 10 countries)

Featured publications

2021: Kovas, Y. & Selita, F., (2021). Oedipus Rex in the Genomic Era. Human behaviour, law and society.
Book. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-349-96048-4

2018: Selita, F. & Kovas, Y. Genes and Gini: What inequality means for heritability.
Journal of Biosocial Science, 1 - 30, 10.1017/S0021932017000645

2013: Butterworth, B. & Kovas, Y. Understanding Neurocognitive Developmental Disorders Can Improve Education for All.
Science, 340, 300-305.

2005: Plomin, R. & Kovas, Y. Generalist genes and learning disabilities.
Psychological Bulletin, 131(4), 592-617.

2019: Field, A.P., Evans, D., Bloniewski, T., & Kovas, Y. Maths Anxiety and Achievement.
Predicting Maths Anxiety from mathematical achievement across the transition from primary to secondary education. Royal Society Open Science, 6(11)

Publications and research outputs

Book

Book Section

Article

Conference or Workshop Item

Digital

Professional projects

Professor Kovas promotes research ethics and scientific knowledge. She conducts research into societal implications of genetic research. She served as Chair of Psychology Ethics Committees; and is a founding member of TAGC – The Accessible Genetics Consortium. She promotes science in many ways, including: workshops on applications of genetic findings; Genes&Tonic events; public discussions and panels, including ESRC Science Festival, British Science Foundation debates, cafés scientific, twin festivals; seminars for school teachers, administrators, and students; interviews to media; scientific documentaries.
Promoting knowledge via TAGC (tagc.world); bringing to Russian speaking audiences the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development – a free on-line resource (http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/). She is an expert in academic writing and publishing. Yulia consults in education, research, applications of genetic knowledge, business psychology and other areas.

Grants and Awards

Yulia has received grant funding from a variety of organisations to support her work including: NIH; MRC; British Academy, Royal Society, Beijing Normal University; Russian Federal Grants; Erasmus+ mobility. In 2011, Yulia was awarded the ‘Mega Grant for Leading International Scientists’ (£3,000,000) to establish the Laboratory for Cognitive Investigations and Behavioural Genetics and Tomsk State University and to lead a program of interdisciplinary cross-cultural research into individual differences in cognition and learning.

Yulia received many awards for her research, teaching and promotion of science, including British Psychological Society Award For Outstanding Doctoral Research Contributions to Psychology; Goldsmiths Peake Award for learning and teaching; British Academy Wiley Prize in Psychology; APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions; D.I. Mendeleev Medal from Tomsk State University for significant contribution to science and education; Russian Academy of Education Award for the significant contribution to fundamental and applied scientific research.