2012 thomson reuters australia citation & innovation awards

CITATION AWARDEES
Research Field: Psychology
Professor Colin MacLeod
The University of Western Australia
School of Psychology
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley
WA 6009
Professor Colin MacLeod is Winthrop Professor of Psychology, Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow,
and Director of the Elizabeth Rutherford Memorial Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion
(CARE), at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Colin completed training both as a cognitive psychologist,
carrying out his research doctorate in this field at Oxford University, and as a clinician, undertaking clinical
psychology training at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. Across his subsequent career, he has
sought to harness these two distinctive facets of his discipline to shed light on the cognitive basis of emotional
vulnerability and pathology. His work has been guided by three complementary objectives: 1) to delineate the
patterns of selective information processing that characterise emotional vulnerability and dysfunction; 2) to
determine the causal nature of the association between each such processing bias and emotional disposition;
and 3) to design and evaluate methods of attenuating emotional vulnerability by directly altering the cognitive
biases that operate to functionally sustain it. He has played a major role in the development of influential
new intervention approaches that contribute to the treatment of emotional dysfunction, and related clinical
conditions, through the use of computer-based cognitive bias modification procedures.
Colin joined the Australian tertiary sector in 1987, and commenced his position at The University of Western
Australia in 1989. Since then, his research has been continuously funded by the Australian Research Council,
and by a range of international granting agencies. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in
Australia in 2002. Colin has held recent editorial positions with the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Cognitive
Therapy and Research, the Journal of Behaviour Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, and Emotion, and has
carried out a wide variety of responsibilities within the Australian University context. He has served as Head
of Psychology, Associate Dean of Research, Chair of Academic Board, acting Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research &
Innovation), national auditor for Australian University Quality Agency, and international auditor for overseas
university quality agencies, including South Africa’s Council of Higher Education, and Saudi Arabia’s National
Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment.
Research Field: Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Dr Evie Leslie
Flinders University
School of Medicine
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide
SA 5001
Dr Evie Leslie is a senior researcher and behavioural scientist who took up her current role in the School
of Medicine at Flinders University in early 2012. Previously she was a Principal Research Fellow at Deakin
University, and has held appointments at the University of Wollongong and the University of Queensland.
Her research has a population health focus, with particular interests in healthy lifestyles (physical activity and
nutrition behaviours), community health promotion and the role of community design and green spaces in
maintaining health and well-being. Currently Evie is the coordinator for the evaluation of a large communitybased
obesity prevention program called OPAL (Obesity Prevention and Lifestyle) which will be operating in
20 communities in South Australia by the end of 2012.
Evie has completed an advanced training course on physical activity and public health at the US Centres
for Disease Control and conducted her own program of research through an NHMRC Public Health Training
Fellowship, examining the impacts of social and physical environments on physical activity behaviours.
Her work includes innovative approaches linking behavioural and spatial epidemiology methods and she
has published extensively on the ‘walkability’ of communities. Over her career she has worked with various
government departments on research-related projects and has contributed to several evidence-based policy
documents. She collaborates with researchers from a variety of disciplines including epidemiology, public
health, urban planning, social geography, health psychology, exercise science, nutrition, medicine and
behavioural epidemiology.
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