Ellie Smith, PhD, is a member of the Research team at Catalyst. In her role as Director, Research, Catalyst Europe, her research focuses on cultivating workplaces that work for women in EMEA. Trained in advanced statistics, she also lends her statistical expertise to cross-Catalyst projects.

Prior to joining Catalyst, Ellie was a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, where she integrated innovative methodologies like neuroimaging and eye-tracking to study prediction and learning in pre-verbal infants. Her passion for data-driven change led to a Senior Research Manager role at The Positive Group, where she specialized in leveraging leadership behaviors and psychological skills for systemic change and utilized her research expertise and advanced statistical knowledge to drive organizational change.

Ellie earned her PhD in Psychology, focusing on Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, from Lancaster University, where she explored the impact of maternal mental health and personality on the neural development of their 6-month-old infants.