Dr Andrea Taylor
University Academic Fellow
Email address: a.l.taylor@leeds.ac.uk
Room: 9.118
Affiliation: Sustainability Research Institute
Biography
Dr Andrea Taylor is a University Academic Fellow holding joint posts at the School for Earth and Environment and Leeds University Business School. Coming from a background in cognitive psychology, her research focusses on better understanding how different groups perceive the risks posed by extreme weather, climate change and other natural hazards, and how these risks can be more effectively communicated. She is interested in applying insights and methodologies from the behavioural sciences to address communication challenges in the provision of climate and weather information services, and support decision making under uncertainty. As meetings these challenges requires cooperation across disciplines, she collaborates with experts in a range of fields including climatology, meteorology, environmental science, and risk management.
Current projects focus on improving the treatment and communication of uncertainty in climate services for China, improving the provision of weather forecast information in Africa, and understanding the factors that influence responses to severe weather warnings in the United Kingdom.
Qualifications
- 2012 Ph.D Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making (University of Bolton, UK)
- 2006 MSc Psychology (University of Bolton, UK)
- 2003 BSc Psychology (Lancaster University, UK)
Memberships/Fellowships
- Met Office Group at the University of Leeds (co-leader of the communications sub-theme)
- High Impact Weather (HiWeather) Communications Task Group (task team member)
- Society for Judgement and Decision Making (member)
- European Association for Decision Making (member)
- Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (associate)
- Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (associate)
Research Interests
General interests
- Risk perception and communication
- Decision making under uncertainty
- User needs for climate and weather information services
- How decision makers process and utilise probabilistic information
- Expert elicitation
Current Projects
Improving the treatment of uncertainty for climate services in China (Role: principle Investigator; Funder: Newton Fund/Met Office Climate Science for Services Partnership China; £340,000)
African Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques (African-SWIFT) (Role: co-investigator and work package leader on WP1 User Needs Co-production and Communication; Funder: Global Challenges Research Fund; £7.8m)
Developing a reference protocol for expert elicitation in health care decision making (Role: co-investigator; Funder: Medical Research Council; £369,439)
Teaching Interests
Current PhD supervision
Rachel Harcourt "What impact does media coverage of climate change and extreme weather events have on people’s likelihood of taking climate action? (co-supervised with Prof Wändi Bruine de Bruin and Prof Suraje Dessai)
Supervision interests
Andrea is interested in superivsing projects that focus on:
- The psychology of climate risk management
- Perception and communication of environmental risks
- Communication of uncertainty in climate and weather information services
- Understanding public responses to severe weather warnings
- The role of emotion in behaviour change
Current teaching
Andrea currently contributes to teaching and supervision on the following modules
- SOEE1390 Introduction to Business, Environment and Corporate Responsibility
- SOEE2310 Tools and Techniques for Business
- SOEE3030 Environmental Research Project
- SOEE5175M Sustainability Consultancy Project
- LUBS5285M Introduction to Research Design and Data Analysis
- LUBS5250M Management Dissertation
Publications
- Taylor A; Dessai S; Bruine de Bruin W (2017) Public priorities and expectations of climate change impacts in the United Kingdom, Journal of Risk Research, pp.1-11. doi: 10.1080/13669877.2017.1351479
- Otto J; Brown C; Buontempo C; Doblas-Reyes F; Jacob D; Juckes M; Keup-Thiel E; Kurnik B; Schulz J; Taylor A; Verhoelst T; Walton P (2016) Uncertainty: Lessons learned for climate services, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 97, pp.ES265-ES269. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0173.1
- de Bruin WB; Lefevre CE; Taylor AL; Dessai S; Fischhoff B; Kovats S (2016) Promoting protection against a threat that evokes positive affect: The case of heat waves in the United Kingdom, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22, pp.261-271. doi: 10.1037/xap0000083
- Taylor AL; Dessai S; De Bruin WB (2015) Communicating uncertainty in seasonal and interannual climate forecasts in Europe, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 373, . doi: 10.1098/rsta.2014.0454
- Lefevre CE; Bruine de Bruin W; Taylor AL; Dessai S; Kovats S; Fischhoff B (2015) Heat protection behaviors and positive affect about heat during the 2013 heat wave in the United Kingdom, Social Science and Medicine, 128, pp.282-289. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.01.029
- Taylor A; De Bruin WB; Dessai S (2014) Climate Change Beliefs and Perceptions of Weather-Related Changes in the United Kingdom, Risk Analysis, 34, pp.1995-2004. doi: 10.1111/risa.12234
- Taylor AL; Dessai S; Bruine de Bruin W (2014) Public perception of climate risk and adaptation in the UK: A review of the literature, Climate Risk Management, 4, pp.1-16. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2014.09.001
- Bruine de Bruin W; McNair SJ; Taylor AL; Summers B; Strough J (Published) "Thinking about numbers is not my idea of fun": need for cognition mediates age differences in numeracy performance., Med Decis Making, 35, pp.22-26. doi: 10.1177/0272989X14542485
- Taylor AL; Dessai S (Published) Strategy on communicating level of confidence in Seasonal-to-Decadal Climate Prediction: Recommendations and Lessons Learnt, Strategy on communicating level of confidence in Seasonal-to-Decadal Climate Prediction: Recommendations and Lessons Learnt, .
- Taylor AL; Kox T; Johnston D (Accepted) Communicating High Impact Weather: Improving warnings and decision making processes, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, .