My goal is to do good, reliable, and open research that has a positive impact. I am Research Manager at The Happier Lives Institute, where I evaluate the cost-effectiveness of interventions: how much they improve subjective wellbeing per dollar spent. I am also a PhD student at the University of Warwick.
Living review
Living review of WELLBY cost-effectiveness analyses
Every charity cost-effectiveness evaluation measured in WELLBYs, from us and from three other organisations, gathered in one place and updated as new evaluations appear.
Peer-reviewed paper
(Re)building Cooperation: Effects of a Cognitive Intervention on Cooperative Behaviour in Games
A randomised controlled trial of a brief therapy-inspired intervention, testing whether it helps people keep cooperating after trust breaks down in repeated trust games.
Book chapter
Giving to others: how to convert your money into greater happiness for others
How much happiness your donations can buy, and what that implies for where to give.
Working paper
Higher Order Uncertainty and the Fourfold Pattern
What happens to the fourfold pattern of risk attitudes when people are uncertain about the probabilities themselves.
Higher Order Uncertainty and the Fourfold Pattern
Extends the fourfold pattern of risk attitudes to choices where the probabilities themselves are uncertain.
(Re)building Cooperation: Effects of a Cognitive Intervention on Cooperative Behaviour in Games
A randomised controlled trial (N = 318) of a brief cognitive intervention on cooperation in repeated trust games against adaptive agents.
Living review of WELLBY cost-effectiveness analyses
Twenty-four charity cost-effectiveness evaluations from four organisations, all measured in WELLBYs and kept up to date as new ones are published.
Current estimates of the neutral point and some conceptual notes
Where on a wellbeing scale does life stop being worth living? We gather the existing estimates, which range from 0.56 to 6.05 out of 10, and set out why the question is harder than it looks.
Pain Cause Exploration 3: Investigating three ways to reduce the global pain burden
We look at three candidate routes to reducing how much pain the world is in.
The wellbeing cost-effectiveness of the Shamiri Institute
A charity evaluation of Shamiri, which delivers lay-led mental health support to adolescents in Kenyan schools.
HLI's public response to The Unjournal's evaluation of our psychotherapy report
Our reply to the external evaluations of our StrongMinds and Friendship Bench work: what we accept, what we dispute, and what we changed.
The promise of ACTRA: Preventing crime with cognitive behavioural therapy
An evaluation of using CBT to reduce crime, and what that is worth in wellbeing terms.
Does improving parenting practices in childhood lead to happier adults?
Supporting parents to engage with their children shows clear short-term developmental benefits and may have profound long-term effects on wellbeing, as well as health and achievement later in life. This report evaluates icddr,b's Reach Up parenting programme.
Toxic Cosmetics: A shallow evaluation of Pure Earth advocacy against leaded cosmetics in Ghana
We evaluate Pure Earth's program to reduce lead in cosmetics in Ghana, involving two years of advocacy and data collection followed by three years of enforcement support for a lead ban.
The wellbeing cost-effectiveness of StrongMinds and Friendship Bench (Nov 2024 update)
Psychotherapy is an effective treatment that can be delivered cheaply by lay counsellors. This in-depth report evaluates the cost-effectiveness of two charities providing such therapy in Africa: Friendship Bench and StrongMinds.
Does a well-fed infancy make for a more felicitous life? A charity evaluation of Taimaka
A cost-effectiveness evaluation of Taimaka, a charity which delivers community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM), which saves lives and improves health and development in a cost-effective manner.
Converting measures of mental health and wellbeing into WELLBYs
We find that results on affective mental health measures do not differ significantly from results on typical subjective wellbeing measures.
August 2024 interim update to 'Talking through depression'
An update to our previous psychotherapy evaluation.
HLI's Giving Season 2023 Research Overview
An overview of all our evaluations to date as well as our conclusions for Giving Season 2023.
Talking through depression: The cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy in LMICs, revised and expanded
A substantial update to our work on psychotherapy: a systematic review, a meta-analysis, and cost-effectiveness analyses of two charities who deliver psychotherapy (StrongMinds and Friendship Bench).
Lead exposure: a shallow cause exploration
We review the literature, model the impact of lead exposure on wellbeing, and conduct some back-of-the-envelope calculations of the cost-effectiveness of various interventions to decrease lead exposure.
Can we trust wellbeing surveys? A pilot study of comparability, linearity, and neutrality
A pilot of 50 survey questions we intend to use to assess questions of comparability, linearity, and neutrality in subjective wellbeing measurements.
Immigration reform: a shallow cause exploration
We review the literature, model the impact of immigration on wellbeing, and conduct some back-of-the-envelope calculations of the cost-effectiveness of various interventions to increase immigration.
Pain relief: a shallow cause exploration
We explore the relationship between pain and subjective wellbeing; assess the severity and scale of chronic pain in terms of life satisfaction; and offer some novel back-of-the-envelope calculations for the cost-effectiveness of several interventions to treat pain.
A can of worms
Deworming has non-significant effects on long-term happiness. Converging information suggests to us that there is no effect. We cannot recommend deworming interventions at this point in time.
The elephant in the bednet
To compare the value of saving lives to improving lives we need to make various philosophical assumptions.
Happiness for the whole family
We incorporate household spillover effects in our cost-effectiveness analysis of cash transfers and psychotherapy, and find that psychotherapy (StrongMinds) is 9 times more cost-effective than cash transfers (GiveDirectly).
A dozen doubts about GiveWell's numbers
We raise twelve critiques of GiveWell's cost-effectiveness analyses. Ten apply to specific inputs for malaria prevention, cash transfers and deworming; two are relevant for more than one intervention.
To WELLBY or not to WELLBY? Measuring non-health, non-pecuniary benefits using subjective wellbeing
We argue that the wellbeing-adjusted life year (WELLBY) is the best measure of the good interventions do. This was for Open Philanthropy's Cause Exploration Prizes.
Deworming and decay: Replicating GiveWell's cost-effectiveness analysis
We criticise GiveWell for a lack of clarity in their deworming analysis. Notably, the data suggests a decay in benefits over time that their analysis does not include.
Taking subjective wellbeing seriously
Mesurer le bien-être pour l'impact
Je présente la recherche du Happier Lives Institute à Altruisme Efficace France.
Subjective wellbeing measures from the Happier Lives Institute and relevant next steps
I also present some Christian views on wellbeing (these are not representative of the views of my employer).
Read & write
Literature review and academic writing
Design
Lab and online experiment design
Code
Data wrangling and analysis in R
Statistical analysis
Linear, logistic, mixed-effects, and meta-analysis models
Cause prioritisation
Reviews and cost-effectiveness analyses of charities and interventions
Developed, conducted, and analysed a study with a special Prisoner's Dilemma to see if the possibility that your choice might be detected and punished influences cooperation rates.
Literature review and laboratory experiment on gloss perception.
Collaboratively designed and prepared a research project to investigate anxiety and the visual probe.
Managed qualitative and quantitative data and ran multiple mediation models to facilitate my colleagues' research on nostalgia.
Warwick
PhD student (current)
University of Warwick
HLI
Research Manager (2021–present)
The Happier Lives Institute
UCL
Research Assistant (2020–2021)
Making researchers' projects happen
UCL
MSc Cognitive and Decision Sciences (2019–2020)
Distinction — Dean's List Award
Southampton
BSc Psychology (2016–2019)
First Class Honours — Dean's List Award
BPS Award for Best Student (overall) — Tony Gale Award for Best Student (year 2)