He is the Chief Executive of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, Director of UKRI's programme on Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing, and Co-Director of the UK Trauma Council.

[4] After completing his Ph.D McCrory trained as a Clinical Psychologist and began therapeutic work within the NHS and NSPCC, focusing on children and adolescents with complex presentations who had experienced significant trauma.

[6] In 2019, he was appointed to the Executive leadership team at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, a leading UK charity for child mental health.

He is interested in why mental health problems develop, and has investigated how childhood trauma can impact brain structure and function in ways that may lead to an increased risk of later psychiatric disorder.

[2] He has argued that alterations in brain structure and function, associated with childhood maltreatment, may in part represent adaptation to early dangerous or unpredictable environments.