I am a Senior Lecturer in Applied Psychology at University College Cork, Ireland, where I am a member of the People and Technology research group. I am also a member of Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software (www.lero.ie)

I am the co-director of UCCs BA in Psychology and Computing. My research expertise lies in Human Computer Interaction, focusing on understanding psychological aspects of peoples interactions with technology.

I have a strong interest in how games and play can support teaching and learning about complex topics. My most important scholarly contributions all involve the translation of concepts from psychological research literature into formats that are useful and helpful for designers and engineers who are developing cutting-edge technology. For example, I have taken principles from psychological interventions and made them useful in the design of technology to facilitate household and workplace energy interventions, educational video games, dietary and behavioural interventions. I have published over 160 peer reviewed papers (i.e., an average of 10 per year since PhD), accruing 4,000+ citations according to Google Scholar metrics. I have been PI or CI on research grants worth over €2.8m. You can find and download all of my publications via my Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KXZj4J0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao or my ORCID profile https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7654-6697

My research focuses on Human Computer Interaction (HCI), a broad interdisciplinary field concerning the interaction of people with technology. It involves understanding how people use technology, how that technology influences our behaviour, how best to design technology to fulfil human needs, and how to evaluate the usefulness of technology. I have a number of specific interests within HCI, which include: 1) educational technology – having been involved in many projects developing educational games and e-learning; 2) technology for health – particularly in design and evaluation of tools for health monitoring, and the design and evaluation of tools for supporting mental health interventions, and 3) the design and evaluation of games – particularly projects where games are applied to solve societal issues such as education, health and behaviour change