Overview

Dr Liz Simpson is a Senior Lecturer at Ulster University, a registered Health Psychologist (HCPC), a Chartered Psychologist (BPS), a member of the School of Psychology Research Institute and Chair of the Health, Education and Well-being RRG from 2012-2018.

She is Course Director of the online BPS accredited MSc in Health Psychology. She is past chair of the Division of Health Psychology Northern Ireland Branch and chair of the Division of Health Psychology Training Committee, she sits on the Partnership and Accreditation Committee and is a committee member of the Northern Ireland Branch of the British Psychological Society.

She has over 20 years’ experience of research in health psychology and has supervised several PhD projects investigating factors that contribute to health and wellbeing with age. She has published high quality papers (n=36) on psychological well-being and health, presenting her work at national and international conferences.

She has worked in the area of healthy cognitive ageing, looking at lifestyle factors that may impact on this such as dietary intake and physical activity. She is interested in biological mechanisms and their interplay with psychological and social factors such as immune function and cognition, HRT use and psychological well-being during the menopausal transition.

She is currently collaborating on three funded projects, one by the Alpro Foundation (The health benefits of soy products on menopausal women), and the other is the National Institute for Health Research (Walk with me study – to develop interventions to encourage walking in sedentary older adults). A full RCT has been funded for the walk with me study by the NIHR.

She is PI on a recently funded CHSUK project using the theory of planned behaviour to gain a better understanding of e-cigarette use in secondary school children and their parents which may feed into the design of an education resource for use in post primary schools in NI.

She sits on the tobacco strategy interest group in NI which reviews current research in this area and identifies areas for further research or intervention. Dr Simpson has ran a number of menopause cafes for a number of community and health organisations to provide information and support for women experiencing menopausal symptoms.