Dr. Bjarne Holmes, Lecturer in Psychology and Director of the Family and Personal Relationships Lab, has a BSocSc from Lund University (Sweden) and a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (USA).

Prior to joining Heriot-Watt University, he was Instructor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. Together with Dr. Karlen Lyons-Ruth, he directed a US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded longitudinal research project focused on the links between mother-infant attachment (measured 20 years ago in a high-risk sample) and the psychosocial and mental health outcomes of the children as they develop into young adults.

Dr. Holmes is an Associate Fellow (AFBPsS) and a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) with the British Psychological Society, a Chartered Scientist (CSci) with UK Science Council, and a Fellow (FHEA) of the UK Higher Education Academy. He is also a member of the Association for Psychological Science, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Society for the Study of Research on Child Development, and the International Association for Relationship Research. He teaches classes in Social Psychology, Social Cognition, Attachment Across the Lifespan, and Advanced Data Analysis. He is an Associate Editor for Interpersona (International Journal of Interpersonal Relationships) and a regular reviewer for the journals Personal Relationships and Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Since moving to Scotland in mid-2005, Dr Holmes has started several long-term research projects with the NHS, including founding B*A*I*R*N*S(Biosocial and Intervention Research Network Scotland), an international collaboration between top international researchers and clinicians focused on identifying as early as possible mothers/infants at risk of bonding problems and validating effective early interventions.

In his free time Dr. Holmes enjoys rock-climbing and mountaineering, which he's been actively doing since 1994. He recently organised the first American expedition to the Borkoldoy mountain range of Kyrgyzstan, where his team successfully made first ascents of and named nine peaks between 4,500 and 4,900 meters (14000 to 16000ft). Two mountains were named after attachment theorists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Read more about the expedition at www.harvardmountaineering.org/borkoldoy/ and at www.johnbowlby.com.