I earned my PhD in Psychology in 2000 (University of Glasgow, Scotland). After working for 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow (School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh) I spent 2 years working as a research scientist (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Kyoto, Japan). I joined the faculty in the School of Psychological Science, UWA, in 2004.

The greatest influence on people’s thoughts, emotions and behaviour is other people. My research examines the ways in which people are influenced by other people, groups, institutions and society. My research uses a range of methods to investigate human social influence, including laboratory experiments, computational simulations and social network analysis.

Current research topics include:

• Informational Influence: How should information be designed to maximise influence and transmission?

• Interpersonal Influence: How do people create shared understandings during social interaction?

• Group Influence: What are the dynamics of decision-making groups, and how can group performance be optimised?

• Cultural Influence: What factors drive cultural (including language) evolution?

• Malign Influence: How can we curb the spread of misinformation and promote a healthy information environment?