Michelle Richardson

Dr. Michelle Richardson is a Research Officer at the Social Research Institute, University College London (UCL), where she has been working since re-joining in September 2014. Her career spans over 15 years in evidence synthesis and systematic reviews, with previous positions at UCL (2010-2012) and the University of Exeter (2012-2013). She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Sussex completed between 2005-2009, preceded by a Masters in Research and a BA in Social Psychology from the same institution.

Dr. Richardson specializes in policy-relevant evidence syntheses at the intersection of psychology, public health, and behavioral science. She is particularly recognized for developing innovative methods for combining quantitative and qualitative review evidence, producing robust classification systems in systematic reviews, and developing user-friendly evidence tools. Her work has significantly impacted how intervention contents are specified worldwide, particularly through her contribution to the BCT taxonomy v1 project as lead researcher. She has led cross-disciplinary reviews on non-drug interventions for ADHD in children and developed the violence against women and girls toolkit to make evidence accessible for policymakers.

Her publication record demonstrates consistent expertise in systematic review methodology with high-impact work including the widely cited 'Psychological Correlates of University Students' Academic Performance' (over 2,700 citations) and 'The Behavior Change Technique Taxonomy (v1)' (over 6,100 citations). Her recent work focuses on translating complex evidence into practical applications for public health challenges including violence prevention, gang-related crime, self-care behavior, and antimicrobial stewardship.

As an educator, Dr. Richardson serves as co-module lead for the MSc module in Systematic Reviews for Complex Policy issues and previously served as distance learning lead for the MSc module in Social Problems and Evaluations (2018-2023). She mentors Masters students and supervises MSc dissertations focused on systematic review methodologies at the intersection of public health, psychology, and behavioral science. She has co-authored three educational book chapters on systematic review methodology and contributes to an annual short course for mixed methods systematic reviews.