After my bachelor's degree I joined a research and development company, working on systems engineering and human factors projects.  I then trained in occupational psychology, followed by doctoral and postdoctoral research on patient safety.  After further work in industry, I returned to full-time academic research in Manchester Pharmacy School and the NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre.  Until April 2025, I held the role of Lecturer in Patient Safety, based in the School of Health Sciences.

My main research area is ergonomics and human factors in healthcare.  My interest within this area is fairly broad, but I mostly look at:

• E/HF methodologies
• Safety culture
• Cognitive ergonomics

I also carry out research on the related theme of healthcare risk management.  In particular:

• Practitioner wellbeing and fitness to practise
• Risk-taking behaviour
• Organisational learning

Patient safety

Leadership, motivation and wellbeing at work

Research and evaluation methods

British Psychological Society: Chartered Member; Associate Fellow

Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors: Registered Member

Health and Care Professions Council: Registered Psychologist

Higher Education Agency: Fellow

BSc (Hons) Human Psychology, Aston University, 2001

MSc Applied Psychology, Cranfield University, 2005

PhD, The University of Manchester, 2008

PgCert Higher Education, The University of Manchester, 2017

Current projects:

• Improving organisational learning from medication safety incident data (Huda Alshammari, with Dr Penny Lewis and Dr Riza Batista-Navarro)*

Previous projects, with a link to the full text of the thesis where available, are listed in the "Supervised work" tab.

I am on the editorial board for Ergonomics and the PH/9 committee of the British Standards Institution.