Team
Academic Staff
- Professor Iain Walker
Director
iain.walker@unimelb.edu.auProfessor Iain Walker
Professor Iain Walker is a social psychologist with broad interests in social and environmental sustainability and in social justice. His research spans many different domains, including understanding public perceptions of climate change and policy support for different climate policies, promoting pro-environmental behaviours and sustainable consumption, understanding changes in health-relevant behaviours in response to the 2019-20 bushfires, and promoting organ donor registration. Much of Iain's research happens in multi-disciplinary teams. Iain has led and been engaged in major projects on public understandings of climate change, integrating human wellbeing into ecosystem assessments, social forestry and livelihoods of small outgrowth farmers in Indonesia, water security, energy demand management, and psychosocial issues in biosecurity. Iain currently leads an MRFF-funded project tracking the effects of the 2019-20 bushfires on mental health, wellbeing, and community cohesion. He is also a co-lead of the Science Communication theme in the national Healthy Environments and Lives research network.
- Associate Professor Michelle Jongenelis
Deputy Director
Senior Research Fellow
michelle.jongenelis@unimelb.edu.au
Associate Professor Michelle Jongenelis
Associate Professor Michelle Jongenelis has expertise in health promotion, intervention development and evaluation, behavioural psychology, and clinical psychology. She works across multiple and diverse health-related behaviours including alcohol and tobacco control (including use of e-cigarettes), nutrition, physical activity, and sun protection. Michelle works as a researcher and consultant for a broad range of organisations covering the not-for-profit and government sectors. She sits on the Australian Council of Smoking and Health, and the World Federation of Public Health Associations’ Tobacco Control Working Group. She is an accredited Clinical Psychologist and has been a committee member of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy since 2008.
- Professor Ron Borland
rborland@unimelb.edu.au
Professor Ron Borland
Professor Ron Borland joined MCBC in July 2019. Prior to that he was the Nigel Gray Distinguished Fellow in Cancer Prevention at Cancer Council Victoria where he worked for over 30 years. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and has a Google Scholar h-index of 80. He is recipient of the 2020 John Slade Award, honoring members of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco who have made outstanding contributions to public health and tobacco control through science-based public policy and public advocacy. Ron is listed in the Web of Science list of the World's most influential scientists. He is one of the Principal Investigators of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, an international collaboration that is analysing the impact of policies on smoking. This project has led to better understanding of the challenges of preventing relapse. He has developed a range of mass-disseminable, smoking-cessation interventions, including the automated-online QuitCoach, which he has shown to be effective in randomized trials. He has a special interest in harm minimisation strategies and strategies to assist highly disadvantaged, high risk prevalence groups. He has a special interest in systems approaches and in theorising that integrates factors influencing individual level change and population focussed change. He is the developer of CEOS theory: a comprehensive theory of Hard to Maintain Behaviour Change.
- Associate Professor Camille Short
Senior Research Fellow
camille.short@unimelb.edu.au
Associate Professor Camille Short
Associate Professor Camille Short is a senior behavioural scientist with experience and training in health psychology, digital, and public health. Her research focuses on the use of technology for improving access to high quality, personalised, and multidisciplinary health services, especially for behaviour change and improved mental health among individuals with chronic and complex health issues. She was recruited to the University of Melbourne in 2019 to drive cross-disciplinary research in digital health and cancer control. She has an affiliate position in the cancer experiences research group at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the School of Medicine at the University of Adelaide, and the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Prostate Cancer Survivorship. She is the current chair of the International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity's e-&mHealth special interest group, an ambassador for Open Digital Health, and serves on the scientific advisory committee for PoCoG, the psycho-oncology clinical trials group funded by Cancer Australia. Her research is highly cited internationally, including in clinical guidelines, with significant contributions to understanding engagement in digital behaviour change interventions, the role of personalisation in effective behaviour change support, and the development and evaluation of several digital behaviour change interventions for chronic disease control, including cancer.
Post-Doctoral Research Fellows
- Dr Tamara Jones
tamara.jones1@unimelb.edu.auDr Tamara Jones
Dr Tamara Jones is a postdoctoral research fellow specialising in exercise oncology and digital exercise delivery. The aim of her research is to improve health outcomes and quality of life for people with cancer through physical activity and exercise. Her current research focuses on behaviour change techniques to support physical activity and exercise levels, and on implementing and evaluating digital exercise interventions. Tamara also has clinical experience as an accredited exercise physiologist, specialising in advanced and complex cancer types.
- Dr Karlijn Thoonen
karlijn.thoonen@unimelb.edu.auDr Karlijn Thoonen
Dr. Karlijn Thoonen is a postdoctoral researcher with a background in clinical psychology and health promotion. Her PhD research focused on understanding the sun protection behaviours of parents and children and providing guidance for future sun safety interventions. After her PhD, Karlijn worked at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, advising a public health campaign on skin cancer in the Netherlands. Since joining the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change in 2022, Karlijn has worked on research projects regarding e-cigarette use and recovery from the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires.
Centre Staff
Amy Lee
Centre Manager & Research Assistant
amy.l@unimelb.edu.auChelsea Chum
Centre Manager & Research Assistant
chelsea.chum@unimelb.edu.au