Deborah was Head of Department for Psychology at the Heriot-Watt Malaysia campus Feb 2021-Feb 2023, and is now based at the Edinburgh campus. In spring 2025, she takes over as Global Head of Department for Psychology.

She graduated from Brunel University UK with a first class honours degree in Psychology and completed a PhD in Psychology at Birmingham University in 1996. In her early career, she established a world leading research programme in auditory fMRI, funded by the Medical Research Council. In 2009, she left to establish cognitive neuroscience teaching and research in the Division of Psychology at Nottingham Trent University. Deborah spent over 8 years at the University of Nottingham; 6 years leading a prestigious translational research centre funded by the UK government's National Institute for Health Research and 2½ years as Vice Provost (Research and Knowledge Exchange) at the Malaysia campus.

Her research spans a range of topics that touch on aspects of individual and societal well-being. She is recognised as a world leading expert on tinnitus. Throughout, she places great value on interdisciplinary collegiate team working. She’s published more than 150 journal articles, has a h-index of >50, and has supervised 16 PhD students to completion.

Deborah welcomes industry collaboration. She has worked with Autifony Therapeutics Ltd to design and deliver the QUIET-1 trial which compared the novel drug AUT00063 with a placebo in a robust, statistically-powered, multi-centre randomised controlled trial. More recently, she has worked with Neuromod Devices Ltd to gather clinical trial data that have led to FDA approval of the first non-invasive device (Lenire) as an effective treatment for tinnitus