News

In June 2026, Professor Arianna Di Florio and Dr Jessica Yang attended the Mensturation Research Conference 2026, hosted by the Menarche, Menstruation, Menopause and Mental Health (4m) Consortium and the Menstruation Research Network (MRN) in Brighton. Jess presented on her work on the genetics of postpartum psychosis and how this might inform our understanding of severe mental illness at other reproductive time points. She was awarded the Early Career Researcher best oral presentation award.

Our team attended the Wales Assembly of Women Conference on 21st March 2026.

Professor Arianna Di Florio attended the launch of the Royal College of Psychiatrists first ever position statement and mental health.

For Premenstrual Disorders Awareness Month 2025, Chloe Apsey wrote a blog detailing what we know about PMDD and why it is important to raise awareness of the condition.

Jessica Yang was nominated for the Cardiff University School of Medicine Postgraduate (PGR) Student Excellence Awards in October 2024. In February 2025, she was awarded the PGR Student Excellence Award for Engagement.

Jessica Yang received the Audrey Jones Award from the Wales Assembly of Women on 16th November 2024.

Women going through perimenopause – the transition period surrounding the menopause – are more than twice as likely to develop bipolar disorder for the first time according to our research. Our study is the first to investigate the link between perimenopause and the onset of severe psychiatric conditions.

Prof Arianna Di Florio and researcher Lisa Shitomi-Jones wrote an article for The Conversation. In the article the discuss their findings, originally published in Nature Mental Health, for a lay audience.

In the winter months of 2023/2024, the team organised the Women’s Winter Webinar series, focusing on women’s mental health across the lifespan.

The team formed the International Postpartum Consortium to publish their first public involvement paper on the global understanding of postpartum psychosis.

Professor Arianna Di Florio and researcher Chloe Apsey attended an event with the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD) and people with lived experience of PMDD. Arianna joined patient representatives and lived experience panelists to discuss approaches to treatment for premenstrual disorders.

As part of Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, we hosted a webinar discussing current knowledge on postpartum psychosis.

Professor Arianna Di Florio and researcher Chloe Apsey were joined by lived experience researcher Laura Murphy, Director of Education and Awareness from the IAPMD to discuss what is known about PMDD and what is yet to be learned.

We hosted a webinar discussing current knowledge on postpartum psychosis, sponsored by the Section of Women’s Mental Health of the European Psychiatric Association and in collaboration with Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP).

Dr Arianna Di Florio headed the first ever polygenic risk score study of postpartum psychosis. The team found that women who experienced first-onset postpartum psychosis shared similar genetic risk profiles to women who experienced bipolar disorder, with important differences which may inform where to place postpartum psychosis in diagnostic manuals.

Why did you choose to do research into mental health/work in mental health research?

Dr Arianna Di Florio has been awarded €1.5 million in research funding for her project titled “Genetic Architecture of Sex Steroid-related Psychiatric Disorders (GASSP)”.

As part of her time at the University of North Carolina during her Maria Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, Dr Arianna Di Florio was a co-investigator on a project titled “Interactive Ensemble Clustering for Mixed Data with Application to Mood Disorders”. The team were awarded $99,998 to investigate big-data methods for improving diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders.

Dr Arianna Di Florio and Professor Ian Jones was awarded a two year Welsh Assembly Government Health Studentship Award for their project titled “A Prospective Study of Bipolar Disorder in Pregnancy and the Postpartum” for £58,585.