Professor Michael Banissy  – Challenge 1 co-lead
Michael is Professor of Psychological Science where he is an expert in the science of social connection and interaction. He studies interpersonal communication, emotion, and social determinants of health. He has received awards from the British Psychological Society and the European Society of Cognitive Psychology for outstanding contributions to psychological research. He is also a member of the Royal Society Industry Fellows College and works with organisations to apply psychological science to everyday behaviours and policy. 

Dr Paul Dodson – Challenge 1 co-lead
Paul is a Senior Lecturer in the school of Physiology, Pharmacology, and Neuroscience. His current research focusses on understanding the part of the brain thought to be involved in reward and addictive behaviour. His lab is interested in deciphering the messages sent by different types of neuron while making risky decisions.   

Professor Luca Giuggioli – Challenge 2 co-lead
Luca is Professor in Complexity Sciences in the Department of Engineering Mathematics. He is interested in quantifying when and how certain betting patterns lead to harmful gambling practices. Luca uses predictive mathematical models to describe the behavioural dynamics that lead individuals to place bets online and compare the theoretical outputs to empirical data.

Dr Sam Kirwan – Challenge 2 co-lead
Sam is a Lecturer in the School for Policy Studies with interests in exploring practices, polices and experiences at the intersection of debt and welfare. He brings expertise across three areas to the Hub. The first is carrying out ethnographic research with low-income individuals, the second is in communicating work on financial (and other) harms for broad audiences, and thirdly, his knowledge and expertise on the changing nature of payment, borrowing and investment practices. This background is essential to understanding how gambling practices – including those that may come under the remit of ‘investment’ or ‘leisure’ – are changing in the era of cashless payments and digital bookmakers. 

Dr Jo Large – Challenge 3 co-lead
Jo is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the School for Policy Studies. Jo's research focuses on exploring where harm is embedded and often normalised, in the everyday practices of consumer leisure industries. Jo is currently researching the experiences of employees of betting shops in relation to their responsibility for implementing 'safer gambling' practices. 

Professor Emmanouil Tranos – Challenge 3 co-lead
Emmanouil is a Professor of Quantitative Human Geography at the University of Bristol and a Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. His research has exposed the spatial dimensions of digital technologies and the digital economy from their early stages onwards. His gambling research focuses on the spatial signature of online gambling behaviour in Britain, and how accessibility to physical gambling outlets affects online gambling behaviours.

Professor Julie MacLeavy – Challenge 4 co-lead
Julie is a Professor of Economic Geography. Her recent research on austerity and 'pandemic precarity' has focused on the increased financial demands being placed on households and individuals. Through the Research Hub, she is exploring how this heightened financial burden impacts attitudes towards financial risk and the relationships that people have with gambling in their everyday lives. In providing a more comprehensive understanding of how gambling is intertwined with other everyday practices including consumption behaviours, borrowing habits and savings activities, we can consider how the reduction of gambling harms can also improve people's financial wellbeing in these other areas.

Professor Martin Hurcombe - Challenge 4 co-lead
Martin is Professor of French Studies and the author of three books. He is a specialist of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century French cultural history who has written extensively on the relationship between war, culture and politics. His current research focuses on representational practices in sports writing and journalism. He is currently writing a book that explores the history of sports writing through a case study of road cycling in France. He has a particular interest in the ways that emerging technologies have reshaped the way that we talk about and experience sport.