Dr Kyra Hamilton, PhD, is a Professor in the School of Applied Psychology and Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MHIQ), Griffith University, Australia. She is also Faculty member in Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI) and SHARPP lab, University of California, Merced. Dr Hamilton has psychology and nursing qualifications and over 30 years’ experience in health. She obtained her PhD from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, 2011 and is founder and director of the Health and Psychology Innovations (HaPI; https://hapiresearchlab.com/) research laboratory. Dr Hamilton has been a visiting scholar at Universities in California, England, Finland, Germany, and Hong Kong, and has given invited addresses in Asia, Canada, Europe, United Kingdom, Unites States of America, and across Australia.
Dr Hamilton’s main areas of research are health psychology and behavioral medicine, and areas of expertise and innovation are health behavior motivation, self-regulation, and change. She is particularly interested in understanding the multiple effects of motivational, volitional, and automatic processes on health behavior and the translation of research findings into policy and practice. Her research is applied widely to understand priority health- and risk-related behaviors including those related to obesity, physical activity, nutrition, alcohol use, sun safety, oral health, and drowning in a range of population groups including parents, pregnant women, young children, adolescents, university students, older adults, Indigenous Australians, healthcare professionals, prisoners, police officers, and truck drivers.
Dr Hamilton has published >160 peer-reviewed journal articles, 14 book chapters, 17 industry reports, and 6 guest editor Special Issues. She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Handbook of Behavior Change, published in 2020 with Cambridge University Press, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Sage Handbook of Health Psychology (2nd Ed), due to be published in 2024 with SAGE. Dr Hamilton is Co-Editor-in-Chief Psychology & Health, Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society, and Australian National Delegate to the European Health Psychology Society.