I am a researcher, trainer and consultant in behaviour change intervention design and evaluation. As Senior Teaching Fellow of the Centre for Behaviour Change (University College London, UK) I lead the Australasian Hub and am also a member of the Health Psychology Research Group at University College London. I am involved in a number of projects to improve health and wellbeing through the application of behaviour change theory to intervention design to: change health professional behaviour, such as reducing variation in adenoma detection rates in colonoscopy; prevent illness, for example reducing cardiovascular disease in people with severe mental illness; and manage illness, such as increasing physical activity in people with musculoskeletal disorders. I am also involved in projects to promote environmental sustainability including increasing recycling in organisations. I am a regular speaker at national and international scientific meetings and in UK Government departments including Department for Work and Pensions and The Treasury. Together with Professors Susan Michie and Robert West, I co-authored the book, ‘The Behaviour Change Wheel – A Guide to Designing Interventions’.

I completed my PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry on the psychological impact of motor neurone disease on patients and their spouse carers. 

I have been responsible for the development and evaluation of interventions to promote awareness and early presentation in cancer. I have also developed instruments to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in changing behaviour and modifying determinants of behaviour. I have collaborated on the development of an instrument to measure awareness and beliefs about cancer for use in an international population-based survey.

I have worked in health services research for over 12 years, managing single and multi-centre studies on a variety of scales. I have been involved in the design and selection of interview schedules and psychological measures to elicit patients’ experience of health care within a variety of contexts including cancer, motor neurone disease, dementia and addictive behaviour. I have extensive experience interviewing with patients, carers and health care professionals as part of projects aimed at policy formation and improving health care provision.

I am a registered Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.