Lydia Johnson-Ferguson is a postdoctoral researcher at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development. She earned her PhD through collaborative work at both the Risk and Resilience research lab at the Jacobs Center (under the supervision of Prof. Lilly Shanahan) and the Experimental Pharmacopsychology and Psychological Addiction Research group (under the supervision Prof. Boris Quednow) at the University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich.

Her PhD thesis, Stress and Substance Use in Young Adults: Insights from Hair Data, explored the relationship between stress exposure and substance use in young adults, offering unique insights through the analysis of hair samples.

Lydia's academic background includes a BSc in Psychology from Cardiff University, after which she interned at Klinik Zugersee, Zug. She then pursued an MSc in Psychiatric Research at King's College London, where her master’s thesis provided a qualitative evaluation of views about the use of Sativex in treating cannabis dependence in patients with first-episode psychosis at the Cannabis Clinic for Patients with Psychosis (CCP) in Lambeth, London.

• Johnson-Ferguson, L., Shanahan, L., Loher, M., Bechtiger, L., Binz, T. M., Baumgartner, M., ... & Quednow, B. B. (2024). Higher paracetamol levels are associated with elevated glucocorticoid concentrations in hair: findings from a large cohort of young adults. Archives of toxicology, 1-8.
• Vock, F., Johnson-Ferguson, L., Bechtiger, L., Stulz, N., von Felten, J., Eisner, M., ... & Quednow, B. B. (2023). Substance use in sexual minority youth: prevalence in an urban cohort. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 17(1), 109.
• Johnson-Ferguson, L., Shanahan, L., Bechtiger, L., Steinhoff, A., Zimmermann, J., Baumgartner, M. R., ... & Quednow, B. B. (2023). Associations of psychoactive substances and steroid hormones in hair: Findings relevant to stress research from a large cohort of young adults. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 157, 106369.
• Steinhoff, A., Johnson-Ferguson, L., Bechtiger, L., Murray, A., Hepp, U., Ribeaud, D., ... & Shanahan, L. (2023). Early Adolescent Predictors of Young Adults’ Distress and Adaptive Coping During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings From a Longitudinal Cohort Study. The journal of early adolescence, 02724316231181660.
• Shanahan, L., Johnson-Ferguson, L., Loher, M., Steinhoff, A., Bechtiger, L., Murray, A. L., ... & Eisner, M. (2023). The worst and the best: new insights into risk and resilience in young adults from the COVID-19 pandemic. Adversity and Resilience Science, 1-15.
• Vázquez, M.*, Johnson-Ferguson, L.*, Zimmermann, J., Baumgartner, M.R., Binz, T.M., Beuschlein, F., Ribeaud, D., Shanahan, L. and Quednow, B.B. (2022). Associations of different hormonal contraceptive methods with hair concentrations of cortisol, cortisone, and testosterone in young women. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 12, 100161.
• Johnson-Ferguson, L., & Di Forti, M. (2021). From heavy cannabis use to psychosis: is it time to take action? Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 1-6.