Dr Sarah Rudebeck (DClinPsy Clinical Psychology, 2015) has been awarded £75,000 through Innovate UK's prestigious Women in Innovation Awards to develop an AI-powered learning tool designed to support young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Sarah, a senior NHS clinical psychologist and co-founder of Recallify, is one of just 61 winners selected from a record 1,590 applications. The funding will support the development of Recallify Classroom, a new educational platform designed to help pupils aged 11 to 18 with memory, attention and organisational difficulties to learn more independently.
For Sarah, the idea behind Recallify emerged directly from years of working with children and young people facing cognitive challenges.
"I have spent my career assessing children and young people with memory, attention and organisation difficulties," she explains. "Time and again, I would identify exactly what support a young person needed, but very little would change when they returned to school."
The emergence of artificial intelligence presented a new opportunity. Alongside co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr Berkan Sesen, Sarah recognised the potential to transform a learner's own notes, recordings and lesson materials into personalised learning support.
"My clinical work shapes what we build," she says. "I am trying to give people the strategies I would recommend in clinic, in a form they can use every day."
The award will enable Recallify to take that vision into schools. Over the next year, the team will adapt the existing consumer app into a classroom-ready platform, co-designing it with young people with SEND and the professionals who support them. For Sarah, the emphasis on safety and evidence is central to the project's success.
"As clinicians, I think we have a responsibility to find out whether new treatments and tools actually work for our patients, and to do that safely," she says. "Young people with SEND should not be the last group to benefit from new technology. Equally, they should not be the group it gets tried out on without proper controls."
The award also includes a year-long programme of mentoring, networking and business support.
"It is recognition, and that does matter," says Sarah. "But the practical side matters more. This award lets us do it properly, with ethics approval, with consent and oversight designed in from the start, and with evidence at the end of it."
Although founding Recallify was never part of a long-term career plan, Sarah says it grew naturally from seeing the same gap in support year after year and deciding to do something about it.
Reflecting on her time at Royal Holloway, Sarah credits both the University's academic environment and pastoral support with shaping her career.
"The neuropsychology teaching in particular was strong, and my placements helped me discover the area I wanted to specialise in. I left knowing it was neuropsychology," she says.
Sarah also highlights the support she received from her personal tutor, Professor Michael Evangeli, adding that it influenced how she now mentors trainees and junior colleagues in her own work.
As Recallify Classroom moves into its pilot phase, Sarah hopes the project will demonstrate how technology can be used safely and responsibly to support young people with SEND, helping more learners access the tools they need to thrive independently.
