SEW lab members

Taylor Hill, PhD

thill001@dundee.ac.uk

Dr. Taylor G. Hill is the director of the Socio-Ecological Well-Being Research Lab at the University of Dundee in Scotland.

She completed her PhD in Experimental Psychology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she developed expertise in using statistical techniques that identify well-being promoting contexts (e.g., personality-driven processes which contribute to happiness). During her doctoral training, she was the lead analyst for the largest single non-government well-being dataset in Canada (The 2019 Nova Scotia Quality of Life Initiative) where she fell in love with population survey methods, open science, and data visualization.

She is an Affiliate Researcher with the Canadian Alliance for Social Connection and Health and Wellstream: Canadian Centre for Innovation in Child & Youth Mental Health & Substance Use, and the Research Methods Consultant with Engage Nova Scotia.

Her research programme examines how people and communities experience, sustain, and promote well-being. She studies well-being as a dynamic system that unfolds across individual, social, and structural levels—linking motivation, positive, and community psychology. Drawing on methods from psychology, public health, and data science, myherwork integrates longitudinal modelling, mixed-methods research, and participatory co-design.

Perhaps most importantly, she is a triplet, a tabby cat mom, knows every episode of Friends, and loves live music, traveling, coffee, and reading historical fiction.

https://www.dundee.ac.uk/people/taylor-hill

THill_CV.pdf

Current Lab Members

Kendall Smith

Kendall recently finished her MSc in Psychology (Research Methods specialisation). She is now preparing her PhD proposal for further study at the University of Dundee. She works in the lab on developing open source materials for various well-being databases (e.g., data dictionaries, cleaning scripts). Her area of research is examining how the strengths-based lens of positive psychology can aid in the psychological repair from trauamtic life experiences (e.g., intimate partner violence).

Mhairi Waddington

Mhairi Waddington is an incoming PhD student at the University of Dundee. She studies how everyday positive activities help people flourish, focusing on person-activity fit, multidimensional well-being, and habit-friendly design (autonomy, variety, dose). Her first degree was in Business, where her interests were always people-oriented – a thread she carried into frontline roles in care, fitness, and advisory work. She has completed an MSc in Psychology and aims to develop practical, evidence-based ways for people to feel happier regardless of their experiences or personality differences. Outside psychology, she loves running, reading, animals and nature, connecting with people – plus an oddly enduring affection for protein bars and to-do lists.

undergraduate 4th year dissertation students

Em Law
Mej Khan
Bethany Irwin
Duncan Salomons
Emily Stewart
Loretta Oduro
Amber Maxwell
Niko Young
Vicky Beith

Former Lab Members

2024-2025

postgraduate MSc dissertation students

Kavya Ramchandran
Vismaya Thiruvannarathu
Mhairi Waddington

postgraduate MSc practicum students

Kendall Smith
Aimee Allan

undergraduate 4th year dissertation students

Samuel Trayner
Tamzyn Harpur
Akanksha Joshi
Will Clarkson
Neela Hossain

The lab is currently being established; please reach out for opportunities to join.

I am happy to recieve inquiries from potential research students (both undergraduate and postgraduate level) who are interested in well-being research. I am also happy to hear from those interested in post-doctoral opportunities, particularly those who are interested in quantitative methods in positive psychology (e.g., using R to analyze existing or new data).

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