I am a social-evolutionary psychologist and my research focusses on gaining a better understanding of the features and functions of emotions, especially disgust. More recently, I have been investigating the causes and consequences of interpersonal revenge. In addition, with my graduate students, I have investigated such topics as gullibility, dehumanization, inspiration, and the source effect for disgust. My main teaching area is social psychology, which I teach at undergraduate level. I am Director of the Psychology Honours program, and I have held several key service roles in the university including Deputy Chair of the University Human Research Ethics Committee. I serve on several journal editorial boards and as an Assessor for the Australian Research Council.

• Disgust
  
• Revenge
• False beliefs 

I am Unit Convenor for the 2nd year core unit in Social and Personality Psychology, and I regularly deliver lectures at all undergraduate levels on social and evolutionary psychological topics. I also supervise Honours and post-graduate students each year. I currently teach on the following courses.

PSYC105 Introduction to Psychology II

PSY234 Social and Personality Psychology (Unit Chair)

PSYC 439 Evolution of Social, Sexual and Emotional Behaviour

Through my teaching and research, I hope to inspire others to value learning for its own sake.

I am the principal supervisor of two Ph.D students:

• Alessa Teunisse, who is researching the psychology of gullibility.
• Mick Weston, who is researching the source effect for disgust.

I have held several key administrative service roles within the university. Over the past 5 years I have been Deputy Chair of the University Human Research Ethics Committee, and I have served on the University Academic Standards and Quality Committee. I am currently Director of the Psychology Honours program. I have served as an Assessor for the Australian Research Council for over a decade, and on the editorial boards of Personal Relationships and Frontiers: Evolutionary Psychology.

Together with my colleagues, we have attracted over half-a-million dollars of funding from the ARC for our research on disgust. My research has been described in the leading textbook on the field of evolutionary psychology by David Buss and is reported in local and international media.