Sydney Conroy is a PhD candidate at Christs College, University of Cambridge and the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development, and Learning (PEDAL) researching play therapy and trauma. She grew up in the US in Southern California before moving to Michigan, where she participated in the scholarship program the Kalamazoo Promise. This allowed her to receive her Bachelors at Michigan State University, before pursuing her Master’s at Seattle University. Sydney practiced as a therapist in Seattle using play therapy which inspired her PhD proposal and brought her to Cambridge. She has published two academic papers on the use of popular children’s films to explore complex psychological topics in an effort to make academia slightly more playful and accessible.