Esther studied Social Sciences at University College Utrecht, The Netherlands, where she received a Bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in 2002.  She completed her MSc in Social Psychology in 2003, and received her PhD in 2008 at Utrecht University.  She received the Best Dissertation Award of the Dutch Association of Social Psychological Researchers, the Early Career Award (Jaspars Award) of the European Association for Social Psychology, and a VENI-grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. Esther worked as an Assistant and then as an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Utrecht University, before joining the University of Glasgow in September 2015. Her research has been published in, for example, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Appetite, and the International Journal of Obesity. She serves on the editorial boards of Social Cognition, Appetite, and Social Psychology. She is Associate Editor at Global Environmental Psychology, and a member of the Young Academy of Scotland.

Esther is a member of the Complexity Programme in the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in the School of Health and Wellbeing. She is also associated with the School of Psychology and Neuroscience, where she teaches the Psychology of Climate Change.

Behaviour Change in the Climate Emergency

Climate change is an ongoing and escalating public health emergency.  It may reverse decades of health progress, and threatens the health and wellbeing of billions of people through extreme weather events, displacement, food insecurity, pathogenic diseases, societal destabilisation, and armed conflict.  Climate change dwarfs all other challenges studied by behavioural scientists.  The greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change disproportionately originate from the actions of wealthy populations in the Global North and are tied to excessive energy use and overconsumption driven by the pursuit of economic growth.  Addressing this crisis requires significant systems transformations and individual behaviour change.  Most of these changes will benefit not only the stability of the climate but will yield significant public health co-benefits.  Because of their unique expertise and skills, behavioural scientists are urgently needed to drive these societal transformations.  I will propose specific ways in which behavioural scientists at all career stages can contribute to this challenge, and will illustrate this with recent research from my lab on behaviour change in the context of food system transformations, on energy and resource use, and on mental health.  I will also discuss behaviour change among behavioural scientists in our roles in teaching, policy advocacy, within organisations, and as private citizens.  As behavioural scientists, we cannot sit back and leave climate change to climate scientists.  Climate change is a health emergency that results from human behaviour; hence it is in our power and responsibility to address it.