Rate My Professor Keri Phillips

Dr. Keri Phillips is a Lecturer in the School of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Health, at the University of New England. She earned her Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) and PhD from the University of New England. Phillips specialises in environmental psychology, with a focus on understanding the human factors that underlie environmental problems including climate change, resource overconsumption, and waste production. Her research aims to design and evaluate behaviour change strategies to address these challenges. She explores how people perceive, think about, and behave in relation to their physical environment, particularly the psychological factors contributing to environmentally destructive behaviours. Phillips applies psychological theories and principles to explain these causes and develop solutions for a more sustainable future. Her current and ongoing research topics encompass messaging strategies to promote sustainable eating choices; the affect heuristic and people's feelings and preferences for different low-carbon energy sources; the collective futures framework examining projected benefits of divergent energy policies on future societies; values theory and the role of human values in climate change mitigation decisions; appropriate behaviour-change strategies to encourage sustainable actions; and flow state as a potential mediator in the relationship between gardening engagement and psychological flourishing.

Phillips coordinates and teaches the unit Environmental Psychology at both undergraduate (PSYC315) and postgraduate (PSYC515) levels. Her scholarly contributions include key publications such as Phillips, K. L., Hine, D. W., & Phillips, W. J. (2019), 'How projected electricity price and personal values influence support for a 50% renewable energy target in Australia,' published in Energy Policy (129, 853-860); and Please, P. M., Hine, D. W., Skoien, P., Phillips, K. L., & Jamieson, I. (2018), 'Prioritizing community behaviours to improve wild dog management in peri-urban areas,' in Human Dimensions of Wildlife (23(1), 39-53). Additional works feature 'Promoting community reporting of peri-urban wild dogs: A partnership approach to behaviour change' (2017), 'Behavioural science and peri-urban wild dog management' (2016), and 'How to use behavioural science to increase participation in wild dog management in peri-urban and rural landscapes' (2015). Through these efforts, Phillips advances applied psychological insights into environmental sustainability and community behaviour management.