Dr Lou Atkins

Lou Atkins PhD is a researcher, trainer and consultant in behaviour change intervention design and evaluation. As Senior Teaching Fellow of the UCL Centre for Behaviour Change she leads the Australasian Hub. Lou is involved in a number of projects in the public, private and charity settings to improve health and wellbeing through the application of behaviour change theory to intervention design to change health professional behaviour, prevent and manage illness. Together with Professors Susan Michie and Robert West, Lou co-authored the book, ‘The Behaviour Change Wheel – A Guide to Designing Interventions’. She a registered Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Lou completed her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry on the psychological impact of motor neurone disease on patients and spouse carers. She has been responsible for the development and evaluation of interventions to promote awareness and early presentation in cancer. She has managed single and multi-centre studies and has been involved in the design and selection of measures to elicit patients’ experience of health care within a variety of contexts including cancer, motor neurone disease, dementia and addictive behaviour.

Lou is a registered Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a regular speaker at national and international scientific meetings and in UK Government departments including Department for Work and Pensions and The Treasury.