As we hit the 2 year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, how are researchers using behavioural research to measure the impact of the pandemic and inform policy responses?

Our expert panel share the results of their research into the cognitive consequences of long COVID, the psychological impact of lockdowns, and using responses to messaging to inform the policy response to the pandemic.

They also share the methods they used to collect great quality data in online research with 1000s of participants. You can find more information about our speakers and their research in their bios below.

Our Expert Panel

Shane Timmons

Research Officer, Economic and Social Research Institute

Shane Timmons is a Research Officer at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Trinity College Dublin. A cognitive psychologist by training, he specialises in using the scientific method to apply insights from psychology and behavioural economics to policy issues. Shane joined the ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit in 2017 and has worked on lab, online and field experiments related to consumer decision-making, health and the environment. Since March 2020, the Behavioural Research Unit has conducted multiple studies to inform the policy response to the pandemic, including a highly-cited review of relevant literature, experiments on risk perceptions and decisions to self-isolate and a fortnightly social activity monitor. His research has been covered in national and international media and published in multiple peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Social Science & Medicine and the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Prior to joining the ESRI, Shane received his PhD in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin and holds a Diploma in Statistics and BA in Psychology from there, too.

Lucy Cheke

Associate Professor, Cognition and Motivated Behaviour Lab, University of Cambridge

Lucy is an experimental psychologist with a focus on learning and memory in health and disease. Having completed a PhD studying memory and planning in adults, children and crow-family birds, Lucy has maintained her interdisciplinary approach in her later work trying to understand the development and consequences of learning and memory deficits. Her work on Obesity explored how higher BMI was associated with impaired episodic memory performance, and how this may translate into altered consumption decisions. Recently, she has been using Gorilla to explore the long term cognitive consequences of Covid infection.

Melisa-Sinem Basol

PhD Candidate, Social Decision Making Lab, University of Cambridge

Melisa is a Gates Scholar and final year PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge. At the Social Decision-Making Lab, her research focuses on attitudes, persuasion, and resistance against misinformation through inoculation theory with a particular focus on societally contested issues such as vaccine hesitancy. Moreover, she is also a co-recipient of the WhatsApp Research Grant for Misinformation to develop interventions against the spread of harmful misinformation on WhatsApp in India, Brazil, and the UK. Similarly, in collaboration with the UK Cabinet Office (and supported by UNESCO, UN, and WHO), Melisa co-developed Go Viral!, a gamified intervention to combat the threat posed by COVID-19 misinformation. Lastly, Melisa is the Co-Founder of CUBIT, an inter-disciplinary initiative to discuss and leverage behavioural insights to tackle pressing societal challenges.

Maximilien Chaumon

CNRS Research associate at the Paris Brain Institute (ICM)

Maximilien Chaumon is a CNRS Research associate at the Paris Brain Institute (ICM). With a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, he has worked on deciphering cognitive processes such as attention, unconscious memory and affect using magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG) and functional MRI using cutting-edge analysis methods. Maximilien started his current position at ICM in 2017, where he specializes in scrutinizing and establishing the best scientific practice for MEG and EEG research, improving statistical methods and documenting emerging trends in the field. He recently used his technical competence to curate the data of a large-scale behavioural project exploring the consequences of COVID restrictions on temporal perception. Gorilla was used to collect data from more than 2000 participants in 30 different tasks and questionnaires across 9 countries.