About
A brief description of who you are and what you do.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘About’.
Write about yourself in the third person. Aim for 100 to 150 words covering the main points about who you are and what you currently do. Clear, simple language is best. You can include specialist or technical terms.
You’ll be able to add details about your research, publications, career and academic history to other sections of your staff profile.
Research
Current research
My research can be (roughly!) divided into two main areas:
- Digital Health and Behaviour Change.
I co-lead the Digital Intervention Group (DIG) at the University of Southampton, which has 60 research staff and postgraduate students across Psychology, Medicine and Primary Care, and Computer Science. DIG focuses on developing, evaluating and implementing digital behaviour change interventions (you can see all of our research here). I’m an expert at using the Person-Based Approach. I am particularly interested in using cutting-edge models of 'engagement' to understand why and how people use digital technology, and how it can be effectively implemented within healthcare settings. I lead the Germ Defence project, a digital tool to reduce the spread of infections like COVID-19, which was used by over 600,000 people in 183 countries. I’ve published research with mental health tech companies like Headspace and Medito.
- The Psychology of Asthma and Allergy.
I lead the Psychology of Asthma and Allergy Research Group in the School – which includes post-doctoral researchers and PhD students. I’m an active member of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Southampton (in the Respiratory and Allergy Theme) and I sits on the UK Taskforce for Lung Health which advises on national policy for respiratory disease research and treatment.
We do all sorts of exciting research in this group, ranging from studying how digital tools may affect societal inequality, understanding how people’s partners can help their disease management, or using cutting edge neuroimaging tools to examine how our brains perceive disease symptoms.
You can update the information for this section in Pure (opens in a new tab).
Research groups
Any research groups you belong to will automatically appear on your profile. Speak to your line manager if these are incorrect. Please do not raise a ticket in Ask HR.
Research interests
Add up to 5 research interests. The first 3 will appear in your staff profile next to your name. The full list will appear on your research page. Keep these brief and focus on the keywords people may use when searching for your work. Use a different line for each one.
In Pure (opens in a new tab), select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading 'Curriculum and research description', select 'Add profile information'. In the dropdown menu, select 'Research interests: use separate lines'.
Current research
Update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’ and then ‘Curriculum and research description - Current research’.
Describe your current research in 100 to 200 words. Write in the third person. Include broad key terms to help people discover your work, for example, “sustainability” or “fashion textiles”.
Research projects
Research Council funded projects will automatically appear here. The active project name is taken from the finance system.
Publications
Public outputs that list you as an author will appear here, once they’re validated by the ePrints Team. If you’re missing any outputs that you’ve added to Pure, they may be waiting for validation.
Supervision
Current PhD Students
Contact your Faculty Operating Service team to update PhD students you supervise and any you’ve previously supervised. Making this information available will help potential PhD applicants to find you.
Teaching
A short description of your teaching interests and responsibilities.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update your teaching description in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’ , select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select – ‘Teaching Interests’. Describe your teaching interests and your current responsibilities. Aim for 200 words maximum.
Courses and modules
Contact the Curriculum and Quality Assurance (CQA) team for your faculty to update this section.
External roles and responsibilities
You can update your external roles and responsibilities in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+ Add content’ and then ‘Activity’, your ‘Personal’ tab and then ‘Activities’. Choose which activities you want to show on your public profile.
You can hide activities from your public profile. Set the visibility as 'Backend' to only show this information within Pure, or 'Confidential' to make it visible only to you.
Biography
Hi, I’m Ben!
I’m Associate Professor and Director of Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise of the School of Psychology, University of Southampton, UK.
I lead an active programme of research including over £15 million as co/principal investigator, with post-doctoral researchers and students in my group. My research can be (roughly!) divided into two main areas (which you can find out about in the research tab):
- Digital Health and Behaviour Change.
- The Psychology of Asthma and Allergy.
I am passionate about teaching – I teach first year students ‘The Psychology of Mental Health’, second year students ‘Introduction to Health Psychology’, third year students 'Building Digital Health Interventions', and am Deputy Director of MSc Health Psychology. I’m currently primary supervisor for 4 PhD students, and involved in the supervision of a further 10. I’m always happy to chat about supervision although not looking to take on any more students until 2025.
Any questions, please do give me an email!
You can update your biography section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select your ‘Personal’ tab then ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading, and ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘Biography’. Aim for no more than 400 words.
This section will only appear if you enter the information into Pure (opens in a new tab).
Prizes
You can update this section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+Add content’ and then ‘Prize’. using the ‘Prizes’ section.
You can choose to hide prizes from your public profile. Set the visibility as ‘Backend’ to only show this information within Pure, or ‘Confidential’ to make it visible only to you.