Valerie is a Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Neuromodulation at the University of Cambridge and a Distinguished Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. She trained in medicine and psychiatry in Canada followed by a movement disorders research fellowship at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health in the United States and a concurrent PhD in Neuroscience at the University College London. She was the recipient of highly prestigious Welcome Trust and Medical Research Council personal fellowships in the United Kingdom and is a National Thousand Talent awardee in China. The MRC senior fellowship is awarded to one individual in medicine in the United Kingdom per year. Valerie was the first psychiatrist awarded both the MRC fellowship and the National Thousand Talent award.

Her work asks: why do we make risky immediate poorly considered decisions caught by emotions and incentives for immediate reward or to avoid pain? And why do we make repeated inflexible choices even when we know they are bad for us? Her research focuses on understanding human impulsivity- compulsivity constructs and their relationship to emotional and incentive processes. She focuses particularly on addictions and compulsivity and uses multiple modalities. Her work aims to develop biomarker prediction with a highly translational arm in the development of novel neuromodulation techniques aiming towards intelligent personalized designs. She is the founder of a new private neuromodulation clinic in Cambridge starting in the fall of 2024. She heads the Eastern Deep Brain Stimulation and Neuromodulation Think Tank, was the past President of the British Neuropsychiatry Association, is a Fellow of the American Neuropsychiatric Association and a Director of the International Neuropsychiatric Association. She is on multiple editorial boards including Biological Psychiatry and Science Advances. She is the lead investigator responsible for more than £6 million in grant funding. Her research is highly impactful with over 250 publications, an H-index of 86 and is in the top 5% of the most highly cited neuroscientists. She has numerous international invitations to speak including as plenary and keynote and is active in media outreach including participating in multiple documentaries.