I obtained my first degree at Trinity College Dublin in 1992, and my PhD from the Centre for Thinking and Language at the University of Plymouth in 1997. In 1998 I moved to the University of Durham where I was first a lecturer, and then from 2005, a senior lecturer. I came to Queen’s in February 2009 where I was promoted to professor in 2019.

I am interested in the role of thinking in everyday life. I have studied how we generalise on the basis of specific evidence, and how we reason deductively. I am also interested in judgement and decision making, including how we think about how things might have been different had we decided differently and in the role played by counterfactual emotions such as regret and relief in decision making. 

I have studied the role played by essentialist beliefs about social categories in how we think about other people and I am interested in decision making around debt and why people fail to seek or adhere to debt advice.

My work has been supported by ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, Templeton Foundation, and NIHR. 

I have served as an associate editor at both the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology and Thinking and Reasoning. I am currently Editor-in-Chief at Thinking and Reasoning.

I convene a final year module, PSY3118 Using Nudges to Change Behaviour. I also contribute to modules at Level 1 and on the MSc Psychological Science (Conversion).