FELS Inaugural Lecture with Professor Hayward Godwin Event

Time:

3:30pm

Date:

2026-10-28 15:30:00

Venue:

University of Southampton, Centenary Building (100), University Road, Southampton, SO17 1BJ

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Event details

This is the second Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences Inaugural Lecture in our 2026-27 series that celebrates the careers of our newly appointed Professors. On Wednesday 28th October 2026, Professor Hayward Godwin from the School of Psychology will share insights from their research and the impact of their work.

Professor Hayward Godwin

Studying how people search for targets: from the laboratory to the real world (and back again).

Search behaviour underlies many everyday activities such as looking for the face of a friend in a crowd and finding our keys when we have lost them. Search is also an important component of many specialist roles, such as airport screening, radiology, forensic searches and air traffic control. Here, I will discuss research that has used a variety of different approaches, branching out from the laboratory to better understand search in the real world, including both specialist and everyday searches. I will provide an overview regarding some of the challenges that real world searches face, including factors that may impair performance. I will close by providing an overview of ongoing research that is teasing apart and resolving these issues in more detail.

Biography

Hayward began his Psychology BSc at the University of Southampton in 2002 and enjoyed it so much that he has never left. He went on to study for his PhD between 2005 and 2008 which focused on visual search in airport X-ray baggage screening. After spending a period of time working as a postdoctoral research fellow, he started a permanent role at the University of Southampton as a Lecturer in 2016. He ran the MSc Psychology course between 2019 and 2022, and since 2022 he has been the Director of the Psychology BSc, returning to lead the course that inspired him on this path to begin with. During his academic career, he has focused on studying search in different forms, including both digital (computer-based) and analogue (in person) searches. He has worked on a number of interdisciplinary projects, working with artists, computer scientists, ship scientists, data scientists, information scientists, with archaeologists, and others besides. Alongside studying search, he has branched out to engage in metascience and open science research, reading research and projects involving clinical psychology.