Sarah-Jayne studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford University (1993-1996) and then joined the Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD programme in neuroscience at UCL (1996-2000). She was based at the Functional Imaging Lab (FIL) and her PhD was supervised by Prof Chris Frith and Prof Daniel Wolpert, and investigated the self-monitoring of action in healthy individuals and people with schizophrenia. She then took up a Wellcome Trust International Research Fellowship (2001-2003) to work in Lyon, France, with Dr Jean Decety on the perception of causality in the human brain. This was followed by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (2004-2007) and then a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2007-2013) at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Sarah-Jayne is actively involved in Public Engagement with Science: she frequently gives public lectures and talks at schools, has worked with the Select Committee for Education, and acted as scientific consultant on the BBC series The Human Mind in 2003. Sarah-Jayne has an interest in the links between neuroscience and education. She co-authored a book with Prof Uta Frith called The Learning Brain: Lessons for Education. She sits on the Royal Society BrainWaves working group for neuroscience, education and lifelong learning and the Royal Society Vision Committee for Maths and Science Education 5-19 in the UK.

Sarah-Jayne is Co-Director of the Wellcome Trust Four Year PhD Programme in Neuroscience at UCL. She is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.