You are an environmental psychologist. What is that?
Environmental psychology has been around for about 50 years. We are interested in how the world impacts us and how we impact the world. I am particularly looking at how our perceptions of climate change affect our health and wellbeing, and how to design environments that promote positive behaviours and outcomes for urban environments and communities.
How did you get into this area of study?
I started in sports psychology. I did my PhD with the late Prof Aidan Moran in University College Dublin, and I worked with the Munster rugby team before moving to Maynooth to work as an environmental psychologist. There’s not much of a difference between the approach I took with the athletes on getting them to focus on positive steps and working with communities across Europe. The main difference is scale.
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What projects have you been working on lately?
We have just finished a big Horizon EU project with 40 partners called GoGreenRoutes. We built 10 green spaces in cities across Europe, including in Limerick, and we did ‘walking interviews’ with local citizens to develop the spaces and assess their impact on health and wellbeing.
We have another Horizon EU project now called GoGreenNext, where we are supporting cities towards being carbon neutral. We use virtual reality to help citizens, decision-makers and policymakers to understand the impact of green spaces. They can change the environments in the virtual reality and immediately learn what the impact would be. In Ireland, the city we are supporting is Cork.
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What do you wish people focused on when addressing climate change?
I think we need to focus on hope, and to take a strength-based approach to tackling climate change. Narratives and approaches that polarise people are less helpful. I would rather that when people feel strongly about something and have lots of passion about it, that we listen and learn from each other rather than dividing.
The solutions that we need to address climate change are complex, so we need to get beyond dichotomies. You can be a motorist and a cyclist, it’s about getting a balance that works for your health and for the environment. I also believe that as researchers we need to listen to and work with citizens. People have a lot of expertise about their own areas.
How can we do that?
One way is to create the environments that people need to build social cohesion. We saw in our GoGreenRoutes project that when communities had a shared green space, people talked to each other more. It reduced the polarisation and extreme views – people saw the benefit of working together on the long-term stewardship of these sustainable spaces.
What’s the secret to your success in European research projects?
There’s no secret really, it’s about going for the Horizon Europe funding and if your proposal is not funded then you try again. I think more researchers in Ireland should be looking to Europe for support. As an island on the periphery of Europe we tend to take a transnational perspective on issues, and it’s important that Irish research is well represented in the EU.
And what do you do in your time away from work?
I really enjoy open-water swimming. Yes it’s cold, but it means you really can get away, nobody can ring you. We also enjoy bringing the kids to the forests in the Wicklow Mountains. Being from Kildare, one of the flattest counties, an afternoon up a mountain feels like a holiday to me.
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