People
Meet the leadership team and members of OWL
You can find out more about each member of staff, including their latest publications and their contact details by following the links below.
Leadership
The OWL Research Group is led by:
Dr Jutta Tobias Mortlock
Dr Jutta Tobias Mortlock is a social psychologist with 25 years of work experience in organisational development and capacity-building in six countries on three continents.
Jutta’s research interest is focused on behaviour change initiatives in workplaces geared at generating sustainable wellbeing and performance, using "third wave" cognitive behavioural approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and other evidence-based mindfulness frameworks. She researches and teaches workplace mindfulness and leadership in collaboration with a variety of organisations and is a popular keynote speaker on the link between wellbeing and performance.
Dr Denvar Summers
Dr Denvar Summers is an academic and practitioner in the field of organisational psychology. He is a chartered psychologist through the BPS, and an endorsed organisational psychologist through the APS.
As an organisational consultant Dr. Summers specialises in various sub-facets of organisational culture, including safety culture, risk culture, and information security culture, as well as psychometric design and evaluation.
Dr Anke Plagnol
Dr Anke Plagnol's research is interdisciplinary, drawing on theories and methods from psychology, economics and sociology. She is interested in the choices that individuals make and how these affect their subjective well-being, for instance to what extent a woman's decision to return (or not to return) to work after childbirth influences her overall satisfaction with life.
Recent research projects have focused on female labour force participation, work-life conflict, financial satisfaction and aspirations.
Internal Members
Professor Julia Yates
Professor Julia Yates specialises in the development of individuals within their careers, and teaches career development, coaching psychology and learning and training. Her research interests are in career decision making, the career paths of those facing particular barriers, and the integration of career theory and coaching practice.
Dr Paul Flaxman
Dr Paul Flaxman's main research interests are in the field of occupational health psychology. His other main areas of research focus on the functions of perfectionism in workplace settings, and examining predictors of employees' ability to recover from work demands during non-work time (e.g., evenings and vacations).
Dr Lara Zibarras
Dr Lara Zibarras' research interests lie broadly within selection, innovation and sustainability in the workplace. Her PhD research focused on the applicant perspective in selection and examined the determinants of application fairness perceptions in high-stakes selection settings.
Dr Jennifer Stead
Dr Jennifer Stead's research interests include subjective well-being, individual differences, the impact of social media sites on individuals and society, social comparison, cyberpsychology, well-being of university students and academics, and academia as a work-place.
Dr Sonja Newman
Dr Sonja Newman is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology.
Dr Claudia Civai
Dr Claudia Civai's research focuses on understanding how people react to unfairness and inequality, and exploring what leads people to cooperate, reciprocate trust and behave fairly, which she investigates using the methodological and theoretical framework of Decision Neuroscience (Psychology + Neuroscience + Behavioural Economics).
Dr Lucia Macchia
Dr Lucia Macchia is a behavioural scientist with an interdisciplinary background. Her work involves quantitative research on human happiness, bodily pain, and behaviour. Integrating methods from psychology and behavioural economics, she explores how psychosocial and socioeconomic factors shape mental and physical wellbeing.