Teresa D'Oliveira

I joined CCCU in 2023 as a Professor of Psychology.

I am an Organisational Psychologist and an expert on the impact of work and working conditions on health, wellbeing, and performance. My work adopts a broader view of human behaviour at work and considers a combination of physiological, behavioural and performance markers to workplace phenomena. Finally, I have extensive experience in naturalistic settings and in the involvement of individuals with lived experience in the design, implementation, and dissemination of research.

My most recent work highlights the impacts of working time arrangements (work schedules and shiftwork) on sleep and circadian health in different industries; exposure to nonstandard schedules and shiftwork are described as human-made disturbances to circadian health that are associated with adverse health consequences and performance impairments.

I am also interested in integrative approaches to behaviour that consider the blurred frontiers between work and nonwork domains as critical for work-life balance and health.

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy with extensive experience in leading educational initiatives and programmes in roles such as MSc programme Director, Head of the Department, and Faculty Educational Leader amongst others.

My academic experience includes teaching contributions in a variety of areas within applied psychology. I have been the module leader for multiple modules including Mental Health in the Workplace, Managing Mental Capital, Strategic Interventions for Psychological Wellbeing in Organisations, Research Methods, Organisational Psychology, Organisational Behaviour, Organisational Research Methods, Human Factors, Wellbeing at Work, Stress and Burnout.

My teaching experience also includes diversified student profiles from academic to non-academic audiences, on campus and online, and delivery in different countries and to international audiences (UK, Portugal, Spain and Italy).

Prior to joining CCCU, I was the programme leader for the MSc Organisational Psychiatry and Psychology, King’s College London, the second biggest postgraduate programme at the IoPPN. My contribution to governance at King’s College London included being a Faculty Educational Lead responsible for the coordination of 14 postgraduate programmes in the School of Academic Psychiatry.

I am interested in understanding how work and working conditions impact individual well-being, health and performance. My background in Organisational Psychology with a strong component of Human Factors led me to first focus on impacts on performance, and later, on wellbeing and health.

My research activities focus on occupational stress and stressors, fatigue, and adverse health outcomes (i.e., circadian stress, sleep deprivation and recovery, job characteristics and sleep hygiene, isolation, and loneliness at work, meaning of work) and the development of interventions that help promote physical and psychological wellbeing and health.

I am fascinated by human-made disturbances at work, and beyond the workplace, associated with adverse health consequences and performance impairments (e.g., work schedules and shiftwork impacts on sleep and circadian health).

I am passionate about multidisciplinary approaches to the study of behaviour (at work and beyond) involving triangulation of markers (i.e., physiological, psychological, and behavioural). Contemporary research activities adopt intensive longitudinal designs supported by a variety of technological developments (e.g., actigraphy, experience sampling, remote monitoring and assessment, salivary markers).

I have an extensive research supervision portfolio from undergraduate to postgraduate levels that includes PhD (2 complete, 4 current with funding for the NIHR Maudsley BRC, LISS-DT KCL, and Applied Research Collaboration, Canterbury Christ Church University), MSc dissertations (132 complete) and 1st Class projects (BSc+MSc) (58 complete).

In the UK, my research activities have been funded by the King’s Together COVID-19, National Institute for Health Research Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR Maudsley BRC), London Interdisciplinary Social Science-Doctoral Training Partnership (LISS-DTP), and more recently by the Wellcome Trust (Sleep and Mental Health Award).

Further information on research interests can be found at www.csilab.org

Research Projects

Exposure to light as a mediator of the impacts of circadian disturbances on behaviour and affective experiences. Researcher(s): Miss Krishnapriya Jayachandran. Supervisor(s): Professor Teresa D'Oliveira, Dr Emma Denby, Professor Sukhwinder Singh Shergill. [Postgraduate Research Project]
Understanding and monitoring early post-intensive discharge: exploring the role of eHealth to signpost PICS symptoms. Researcher(s): Mr Daniel Lai. Supervisor(s): Professor Teresa D'Oliveira, Professor Sukhwinder Singh Shergill, Professor Douglas MacInnes. [Postgraduate Research Project]