Phillipa Coan

Alumna, Phillipa, is a Chartered Psychologist and Visiting Research Fellow at the Business School. With extensive consultancy experience in the areas of selection, development, organizational change and innovation, she has worked with both private and public sector clients in oil and gas, engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, academia and financial services.

Graduating in 2015, Phillipa’s research focused on understanding and changing employee behaviour to be more environmentally sustainable. More specifically, it investigated the relationship between environmental behaviour carried out at work and at home with the intention of encouraging a stronger link between the two.

She has subsequently set up STRIDE, a consultancy focused on improving the environmental performance of organizations through employee behaviour change. Alongside her consultancy projects, she works with her colleagues at Leeds on large-scale research projects and publications in the area. She is particularly keen to take a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach with both her research and consultancy work.

Phillipa has won both university and national awards for her research including First Prize in the 2015 Student Prizes for Excellence, awarded by the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology (DOP). This prize recognises research that makes the most valuable contribution to the field of Occupational Psychology in the 21st century. 

She said on winning the prize: “I am so pleased to have won the DOP award this year. It’s great that this topic area has generated so much interest and to be acknowledged with an award is the perfect way to finish the PhD. Special thanks to my supervisors Chris Clegg and Peter Gardner along with the Business school for all their support.”

Phillipa was also the Business School’s Postgraduate Researcher of the Year in both 2012 and 2014. In 2015 she was awarded the Outstanding Academic Performance Prize and was added to the University of Leeds’ Roll of Honour List for Women of Achievement. Phillipa is a Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society.