معرفی
Dr Helen Keyes is Head of the School of Psychology, Sport and Sensory Science within the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. A cognitive psychologist by training, she leads cross-disciplinary research that spans public-health psychology, road-user behaviour, visual perception and higher-education pedagogy, while also holding strategic governance roles across the university and NHS.
Education & Professional Qualifications
- PhD Psychology, University College Dublin
- BSc (Hons) Psychology, First Class Honours, University College Dublin
- PGCert Learning and Teaching, Anglia Ruskin University
- SMI Level 7 Senior Leadership Programme, Institute of Government and Social Policy
- Heads of Leadership Development Programme, Progress 360
- Aurora Leadership Development Programme, Advance HE
Research Interests
Helen’s research centres on improving population-level health and wellbeing, with a particular focus on:
- How cyclists and drivers perceive and interact within the road environment, and how targeted interventions can enhance safety for vulnerable road users.
- Visual and auditory perception in dynamic real-world settings such as driving, cycling and competitive sport.
- Higher-education student engagement, wellbeing, employability and success, employing experimental pedagogical methods to design scalable interventions.
She conducts this work through three complementary ARU research collectives: the Applied Social Change Research Hub, the ARU Centre for Societies and Groups, and the Cognition Group within the ARU Centre for Mind and Behaviour.
Publication Themes
Between 2022 and 2024 Dr Keyes published extensively on global adolescent health trends, road-user behaviour, ageing and cognition, and the psychological benefits of attending live sport. The corpus highlights a commitment to large-scale epidemiological datasets, naturalistic behavioural observation and intervention evaluation, with an overarching goal of translating psychological science into policy and practice.
Scientific Awards & Recognition
- BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (2015)
- Cambridgeshire County Council Research Funding (2017)
- Children’s Traffic Club Consultancy Grant (2019)
- Colchester Borough Council Consultancy Grant (2020)
- Senior Fellowship, Higher Education Academy
- Associate Fellowship, British Psychological Society
Advising & Grant Portfolio
Dr Keyes welcomes doctoral supervision enquiries in visual/aural perception, cycling and driver behaviour, and higher-education interventions. She has served as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on grants exceeding £250k, with funders including the BA/Leverhulme Trust, local authorities and industry partners. She is Academic Lead for Embedding Wellbeing into the Curriculum and chairs the university’s Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism work-stream.
Laboratories & Teams
Her work is embedded in the Applied Social Change Research Hub and the Cognition Group, both housed in the ARU Centre for Mind and Behaviour. These interdisciplinary teams provide state-of-the-art eye-tracking, driving simulation and mobile psychophysiology facilities to support experimental work in controlled and naturalistic environments.
