Rate My Professor Celia Lie

Dr. Celia Lie is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Otago, where she has worked since 2009. She completed her BSc (Hons) and PhD at the University of Otago in 2007 under the supervision of Dr. Brent Alsop. Prior to her current role, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington for two years. Lie brings over twenty years of experience in demonstrating and lecturing within the department. She coordinates the laboratory programmes for PSYC 111 (Brain and Behaviour) and PSYC 112 (Human Thought and Behaviour), and serves as the paper coordinator and lecturer for PSYC 328 (Behaviour Analysis in Everyday Life).

Lie's academic interests center on behaviour analysis, with a focus on factors influencing human choice behaviour and behavioural intervention strategies addressing community issues. Her notable publications include "Sharpen Your Pencils: Preliminary Evidence that Adult Coloring Reduces Depressive Symptoms and Anxiety" (Creativity Research Journal, 2017), "Mind the Gap: Training Road Users to Use Speed and Distance When Making Gap-Acceptance Decisions" (Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2011), "Effects of Point-Loss Punishers on Human Signal-Detection Performance" (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2009), "Stimulus Disparity and Punisher Control of Human Signal-Detection Performance" (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2010), "The Effect of MDMA on Sensitivity to Reinforcement Rate" (Behavioral Neuroscience, 2016), and "Understanding Aotearoa New Zealand University Students' Intentions to Seek Help if Experiencing Mental Distress" (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022). Actively engaged in outreach, she promotes psychology in the community and received the Outstanding External Engagement award from the University of Otago Division of Sciences in 2024.