Professor Mary Barker BSc, MSc, PhD, C Psychol
Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Science, University of Southampton Honorary Reader in Psychology, Institute for Women’s Health, University College London
- Related links
- @BarkerSoton
- @MRC_LEU
I am a chartered psychologist with experience of working in academic public health research and the public sector.
As a psychologist, I am interested in finding effective ways to support young men and women to become better nourished, both for their own health and well-being and for the growth and long-term health of their children.
The focus of my work is the development and evaluation of behaviour change interventions designed to improve diet, physical activity and well-being. These primarily target adolescents and women of childbearing age, to translate findings from epidemiological and mechanistic studies of the developmental origins of health and disease into interventions to improve long-term health and well-being. These interventions offer the opportunity to test models of health behaviour, and have helped elucidate the psychological mechanisms that underlie behaviour change in young women. I co-lead a multi-disciplinary team in the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit in the development and testing of a programme of complex behaviour change interventions to improve diet and body composition in population health settings in low, middle and high income countries.
Our team’s ‘Healthy Conversation Skills’ approach to improving diet and physical activity has been widely adopted in the UK as the delivery mechanism for the UK government making every contact count agenda and in large projects around the world, including the Healthy Start Workforce programme in New Zealand and the Healthy Lifecourse Trajectory Initiative (HeLTI) in Canada, South Africa, India and China. A Healthy Conversation Skills approach to improving public health was mentioned in the report of the WHO commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, has informed priority setting by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and was featured in the 2015 Chief Medical Officer for England’s annual report.
I received a BSc in Psychology from the University of Southampton in 1986 and an MSc in Environmental Psychology from the University of Surrey in 1988. My research interest at the time was in the relationship between offending behaviour and the physical environment and, as a consequence, was appointed Research Officer working for the UK government at the Home Office. This led to a period conducting research at the University of Bristol studying the development of sex offender treatment programmes in prisons and the probation service. I moved into health research following my appointment at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton in 1994. I completed my PhD in 1999 and have ever since carried out research aiming to identify ways of supporting young women to become better nourished, both for their own health and well-being and for the growth and long-term health of their babies. I was appointed an Honorary Reader in Psychology, at the Institute for Women’s Health in January 2017 and Visiting Professor at the University of Agder, Norway in 2018.
Qualifications:
BSc, Psychology, University of Southampton 1986
MSc, Environmental Psychology, University of Surrey, 1988
PhD, University of Southampton, 1999
Appointments held:
1988-1991 Senior Research Officer, Home Office Research and Planning Unit, London
1991-1994 Research Fellow, Faculty of Law, University of Bristol
1994-1999 Research Assistant, MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton
1999-2006 Research Fellow and 2006-2011 Senior Research Fellow, MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre, University of Southampton
2011 to 2018 Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton
2017 to date Honorary Reader, Institute of Women’s Health, University College London
2018 to date Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Science, MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton
2018 to date Visiting Professor, University of Agder, Norway