Kerry O’Brien
Professor of Behavioural Sciences
Monash University
Melbourne, Australia
© 2026 Kerry O’Brien
Behavioural Sciences Research Laboratory
Welcome
Professor of Behavioural Sciences at Monash University. I’m trained in Psychology and Public Health and teach and conduct research in the various areas of health and behavioural sciences. I founded and direct the Behavioural Sciences Research Laboratory at Monash University, and was Associate Dean Research in my Faculty (350+ academics) from 2019 to 2025.
The focus of my lab, PhD students, and post-docs is on conducting rigorous research that provides practical knowledge and solutions for wider society, including industry partners, government, community organisations and the public. We regularly develop new research measures and methodologies. This includes the development and psychometric testing of new survey scales/measures, covert methods, implicit and explicit measures, and novel experimental approaches.
More recently, we have been utilising and sometimes validating methods that employ LLMs and AI/Machine learning to study various social and psychological phenomena, and associated behaviour at a population level. I utilise a wide range of research designs and methodologies, including experimental, longitudinal and cross-sectional designs, and a multitude of statistical analysis approaches. Qualitative methodologies and one-on-one and focus group designs are also employed for initial study of new poorly understood issues. This work informs subsequent theoretical development and quantitative research for theory testing and empirical evidence gathering.
The success of my lab and research has been on the back of a collaborative ethos and culture of supporting PhD students, post-docs, and junior collaborators. This includes extensive mentoring and research training, and priority with regards publication first authorship and co-investigator opportunities on competitive grant applications. My lab has collaborated with over 250 world leading researchers, who broaden our expertise and ability to do a wide array of work on important societal issues.
New ARC Linkage Project utilising LLMs and AI to track Islamophobia and its behavioural and psychological impacts on Australian Muslims.
National Industry PhD Program award from the Australian Department of Education.
Faculty of Arts Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Engagement and Impact.
Systematic review for the US Department of Homeland Security on interventions to increase trust in government in democratic contexts.
Research Areas
They overlap more than they look. Stigma is a measurement problem, marketing is a behaviour-change problem, and almost everything ends up needing a better scale.
How explanatory models of obesity move blame, discrimination and treatment; how internalised weight bias relates to eating, distress and quality of life; and whether prejudice-reduction interventions with health professionals hold up under randomised trial. Cross-national work with Rebecca Puhl, Janet Latner and Lenny Vartanian across four countries.
Experiments · randomised trials · multinational surveys
Alcohol industry sponsorship and hazardous drinking among sportspeople in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil; children’s exposure to alcohol advertising in televised sport; and whether counter-advertising can dilute the effects of sponsorship. This work has informed submissions to the Australian Medical Association, Eurocare and national preventive health agencies.
Content audits · field experiments · policy evaluation
The extent of children’s and young people’s exposure to gambling advertising in sport and non-sport television, the relationship between gambling advertising and attitudes and behaviour, and gambling among people experiencing homelessness.
Meta-analysis · media audits · qualitative interviews
Islamophobia in Australia and its impacts; when perceived threat translates into anti-Muslim behaviour; existential anxiety and support for violent extremism in Indonesia; homophobic language in youth sport and how to reduce it; and gender-sensitive approaches to preventing violent extremism in Asia and the Pacific.
Cluster randomised trials · national surveys · scale development
Why people avoid physical activity and sport, and what stigma has to do with it. Also data-linkage work on self-harm and mental health service use in culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Victoria, and dietary and physical activity intervention trials.
Data linkage · longitudinal cohorts · randomised trials
Instruments developed or validated with colleagues include the upward and downward physical appearance comparison scales, the Tendency to Avoid Physical Activity and Sport Scale, the Weight Stigma Exposure Inventory and the Hate Behaviours Scale, with translations and invariance testing across Chinese, Italian, Turkish and Malaysian samples. Related work on replication, and on what implicit measures do and do not tell us.
EFA and CFA · measurement invariance · IRT · Bayesian methods
Publications
130 peer-reviewed journal articles, eight book chapters, and reports for government and non-government bodies. Filter by topic, or search by author, title or journal.
Google Scholar: h-index 53, i10-index 115, roughly 10,160 citations. Scopus: h-index 41, roughly 5,375 citations. Of 130 indexed publications, 75% appear in Q1 journals and 26% sit in the top 10% of most-cited articles worldwide. Co-authors in 44 countries.
† corresponding author when not listed first · * with PhD student · # with post-doctoral researcher
Funding
Approximately AU$5.7 million in national competitive and industry research income, from the Australian Research Council, the NHMRC, UN Women, state health promotion foundations, and government departments in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Tracking Islamophobia and its impacts on Australian Muslims’ lives
ARC Linkage Project LP250100022, with industry partner funding · AU$875,437 · Carland, O’Brien (conceptual and writing lead), Vergani, Vakhitova
National Industry PhD Program
Department of Education, Australian Government · AU$232,289 · Chief Investigator
The effectiveness of interventions to increase trust in government in democratic contexts: a systematic review
US Department of Homeland Security · AU$108,736 · Vergani, O’Brien, Vakhitova
Islamophobia in Australia Report
Australian Islamophobia Register · AU$120,000 · Carland, O’Brien, Vergani
Stigma training for general practitioners to increase medication-assisted treatment of opioid dependence
Camurus Pty Ltd and others · AU$86,600
Examination of the risk of suicide following injury outcomes
Department of Health Victoria, Graduate Research Industry Partnership · AU$70,000 · Chief Investigator
‘No alcohol’ products: a rapid review
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation · AU$23,300 · Lead Chief Investigator
Countering the influence of alcohol sport sponsorship: a media intervention
NHMRC Project Grant APP1159262 · AU$412,418 · Dixon, O’Brien, Vandenberg and others
Evaluating programs aimed at gender transformative work with men and boys
VicHealth · AU$199,993 · Roberts, Elliott, O’Brien and others
Research and engagement addressing homophobia in sport
You Can Play · AU$27,474 · Lead Chief Investigator
Pride Cup evaluation
VicHealth · AU$40,000 · Jeanes, Connor, O’Brien, Denison, Lambert
Evaluation of the Fast-Tracking Initiative, Magistrates’ Court of Victoria
Court Services Victoria · AU$181,686 · Meyer, McCulloch, Maher, O’Brien, Vakhitova, Fitz-Gibbon
Gender equality and violent extremism in North Africa
UN Women · AU$845,181 · True, O’Brien and others
Extent of, and young people’s exposure to, gambling advertising in sport and non-sport television
Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation · AU$191,808 · Lead Chief Investigator
Reducing homophobia and improving mental health in youth sport
StandUp Events · AU$82,000 · Chief Investigator
Healthy ageing, veterans and care
Defence Health Foundation · AU$40,000 · Warren, Twomey, O’Brien
Identifying and understanding men’s risky drinking subcultures and settings
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation · AU$174,546 · Roberts, O’Brien and others
Indonesia: policies for the disengagement and rehabilitation of violent extremists
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia Awards · AU$301,000 · Lentini, True, O’Brien and others
Gambling and homelessness
Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, Early Career Research Support Grant · AU$50,000 · Vandenberg, O’Brien, Carter
Children and young people’s exposure to alcohol advertising
Department of Health, Australian Government · AU$136,561 · Lead Chief Investigator
A gender-sensitive approach to preventing violent extremism in Asia and the Pacific
United Nations and Oxfam · AU$377,047 · True, O’Brien and others
Gender-sensitive approach to preventing violent extremism in Asia-Pacific
UN Women · AU$532,905 · True, Gordon, O’Brien, Iqbal, Zech
The stress of obesity stigma
ARC Discovery Project DP160100904 · AU$288,000 · Vartanian, Pinkus, O’Brien, Smyth, Latner
Creating Change Program evaluation
Greater Dandenong City Council · AU$15,000 · O’Brien, Vergani
Western Australian adolescents’ exposure to alcohol advertising
Healthway and the Drug and Alcohol Office · AU$144,040 · Jones, Pettigrew, O’Brien
Exposure to alcohol advertising in televised sport
ARC Linkage Project · AU$166,136 · Lead Chief Investigator
Children and young people’s exposure to alcohol advertising in sport
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation · AU$112,500 · Chief Investigator
Alcohol advertising and sponsorship in Australia
Australian National Preventative Health Agency, NHMRC administered · AU$80,000 · Lead Chief Investigator
Hazardous drinking and sponsorship in UK sport
Alcohol Research UK · AU$100,000 · Chief Investigator
Physical activity intervention in people over 55 years
Durham and Chester-le-Street Lifestyle Initiative, United Kingdom · AU$80,000 · Co-Chief Investigator
Dietary intervention adherence study
New Zealand National Heart Foundation · NZ$15,000 · Chief Investigator
Alcohol sponsorship and hazardous drinking
Alcohol and Liquor Advisory Council of New Zealand · AU$14,500 · Chief Investigator
Alcohol in sportspeople
Maurice and Phyllis Paykel Trust · AU$8,500 · Chief Investigator
Leadership
Six years as Associate Dean Research across a faculty of more than 350 academics, and a longer record of building the grant-writing and research training that early career researchers actually need.
As Associate Dean Research I designed and ran the faculty’s training programmes for national competitive grant schemes. The DECRA programme is the clearest measure of whether that work landed: 23 successful fellowships at a 33% success rate, against a national average of 17.5%.
The same principle runs through the lab. PhD students, post-docs and junior collaborators get extensive mentoring and research training, and they get priority on first authorship and on co-investigator positions in competitive grant applications. That is the reason the collaborations hold together, and it is deliberate.
Alongside this I have chaired academic appointment panels, sat on tenure and promotion panels for more than 13 years, chaired the Faculty Early Career Researcher Committee, and served on Monash’s Digital Research Strategy and Security Committee, where I secured government approval for access to sensitive datasets granted to only three universities to date.
Editorial Board, BMC Public Health
Associate Editor, Obesities
Associate Editor, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Associate Editor, Addiction
Stepped down on becoming Associate Dean Research
Faculty of Arts Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Engagement and Impact, Monash University
Wiley Top Viewed Article of the Year, British Journal of Social Psychology
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation Award, Research into Action
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Enterprise, and the Monash ARC Research Mentoring Award
Emerging Research Excellence Fellowship, Monash University
Associate Dean Research, Faculty of Arts, Monash University
Research strategy and budget across roughly 250 academic staff. Built and led grant training programmes that produced 23 successful DECRA fellowships at a 33% success rate, against a national average of 17.5%.
Research Director, School of Social Sciences, Monash University
Founding Director, Behavioural Sciences Research Laboratory, Monash University
Head of Behavioural Studies, Monash University
Scientific Advisor, Eurocare, the European peak body for alcohol policy
External advisor, Healthway, Government of Western Australia
Collaborators
My lab has worked with more than 250 researchers in 44 countries. Below are the colleagues I work with most closely and most often. Names link to their Google Scholar profiles.
John A. Hunter
Professor, University of Otago
Janet Latner
Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Institute of Allied Health Sciences, National Cheng Kung University
Professor, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University
Professor of Neuroethics, Monash Bioethics Centre, Monash University
Professor, Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Connecticut
Professor Emeritus, Psychology
Department of Physiotherapy
Professor, University of Newcastle
Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction, Nottingham Trent University
The University of Hong Kong
E-Da Hospital
Qufu Normal University
Professor, Maynooth University
Associate Professor, Deakin University
Professor of Psychology, University of Otago
Monash University
Associate Professor, Monash University
Professor of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
ASAPbio
Institute of Allied Health Sciences, Tainan, Taiwan
Health and civil rights researcher and advocate
University of Missouri
Professor and Dean of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University
Deputy Director, UQ Data Science CRP; Professor, Kaleidoscope Research Collaborative
Associate Professor, Victoria University
Criminology, Justice and Social Policy, University of Wollongong
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Brunel University London
Senior Lecturer, Monash University
Brian Vandenberg
Health economics and public health
Supervision
More than 45 higher-degree completions at doctoral, masters and honours level, across New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia.
A defensible design and a real question. I am most useful to students working on stigma, alcohol and gambling policy, prejudice and extremism, health behaviour, or measurement development, and to students who want serious quantitative training rather than a thesis assembled from convenience data. I also supervise PhDs by publication, and I am happy to talk with candidates who already have papers in progress and need a coherent programme built around them.
Send a one-page outline: the question, why it matters, the design you have in mind, and the data you can realistically get. Tell me which scholarship or funding you are applying for and when it closes. A CV and one writing sample help. I read everything that arrives with those four things in it.
Tiansi Chu · Kangqiao Xiang · Paul O’Neill · Alina Abramenko · Alireza Zangeneh
Dan Myles · Thi Le Pham · Nadia Bevan · Erik Denison · Georgia Rush · Matteo Vergani · Muhammad Iqbal · Victoria Absalom (committee, United Kingdom)
Teaching
Twenty years of teaching across four institutions in three countries, in class sizes running from 17 to 800.
Introductory psychology; social psychology, with a focus on conflict; health psychology and mental health; personality and individual differences; psychological research methods; psychometrics; human factors; behaviour change; public health policy; and the social determinants of health.
Research methods in the Master of Research in Psychology, and health psychology in the Master of Clinical and Health Psychology.
Method subjects are where most of the value sits, and where most teaching goes wrong. I teach research design and psychometrics through problems students have to solve rather than through worked examples they only have to follow, which is slower and produces researchers who can tell a defensible design from a convenient one.
4.5–4.7 out of 5.0
4.5–4.7 out of 5.0
4.9–5.0 out of 6.0
Contact
I am glad to hear from researchers, prospective students, journalists and policy staff working on stigma, alcohol and gambling policy, prejudice and extremism, or measurement.