Research Profile & Biography

Dr Taylor is an epidemiologist and behavioural scientist, and her research covers three main areas: 1) disentangling the causal nature of the association between smoking tobacco and mental health, 2) identifying intervention targets using experimental and epidemiological methods, and 3) co-design and testing smoking cessation interventions for use in NHS psychological services.

Dr Taylor is Research Director for The Addiction and Mental Health Group (AIM), in which at any one time she supervises over 40 students (PhD, DClinPsy, MSc, MMath, BSc), research assistants and research associates. Dr Taylor holds >£1 million in competitively funded grant income to co-design smoking cessation interventions for people with mental illness, and then test the interventions in psychological services.  Dr Taylor is most renowned for her work on the ESCAPE trial, and the evidencing the benefits of smoking cessation for mental health. Dr Taylor is an Associate Editor for the leading Journal Addiction and has been invited as a Guest Editor for various distinguished journals such as Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Dr Taylor completed her BSc and MSc at the University of Worcester with first class honours, while working part-time as a research assistant, and in the NHS offering mental health support to people with psychosis. Dr Taylor completed her PhD in epidemiology at The University of Birmingham, under the supervision of Prof Paul Aveyard, Prof Ann McNeil, and Mr Alan Girling on the topic of smoking and mental health. She continued to multiple post-doctoral positions at the University of Bristol working in the MRC's Integrative Epidemiology Unit until 2018, when she was awarded an Assistant Professorship in Clinical Psychology at the University of Bath.

Notable Research Awards & Prizes

• International Society of Behavioural Medicine, Early Career Award, 2021
• Society for the Study of Addiction, Fred Yates Prize, 2020
• UK Society for Behavioural Medicine, Early Career Award, 2018
• Cancer Research UK, Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, 2017
• Welcome Trust, Public Engagement Prize, 2015
• BMJ, Best Research Paper of the Year Award, 2014
• NIHR Coordinating Centre for Research, Capacity Development Scholarship, 2011

Media

Please see my YouTube channel.

I currently teach on the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy), MSc in Clinical Psychology, MRes in Psychology, and BSc in Psychology.

I am happy to supervise PhD and DClinPsy projects in these areas:

Methodologies:

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses 
• Observational/cohort studies
• Secondary analyses (i.e., randomised controlled trials, Clinical Practice Research Database) 
• Advanced epidemiological techniques (i.e., propensity score matching, instrumental variable analyses, causal inference)
• Feasibility and pilot randomised controlled trials
• Randomised designs

Topics:

• Tobacco smoking and mental health
• Tobacco smoking treatment and epidemiology
• Mental health treatment and epidemiology
• Addiction treatment and epidemiology
• Dual treatment of addiction and mental health
• Projects based in primary care services
• Projects based in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services
• Depression and anxiety disorders
• Behaviour change