Viewing archives for Research Group

Barry Grimes

Barry coordinates the annual publication of the World Happiness Report, the world’s foremost publication on global wellbeing and human progress. Working in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the editorial board, he promotes the latest research on global happiness and how to increase it.

Barry is an experienced comms and events specialist, working across the public, private, and non-profit sectors for over 15 years. In 2019, he helped to create the Happier Lives Institute, a charity evaluator that compares the impact of international NGOs using subjective wellbeing measures. In 2022, he was part of the organising team for the Wellbeing Research & Policy Conference in Oxford. Most recently, his work at the International Alliance of Mental Health Research Funders has supported greater collaboration across the sector.

Barry studied Combined Social Sciences at Durham University and has a Postgraduate Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. He leads the Action for Happiness Cotswolds group and has taken the Giving What We Can pledge to donate at least 10% of his income to effective charities.

Yoel Sevi

Yoel is a Research Assistant at the Wellbeing Research Centre focusing on what makes us happy at work. He previously completed an MMathPhil in Mathematics & Philosophy at the University of Oxford and worked as a Research Assistant at Saïd Business School, building predictive models of the labour market. Outside of academia, he has been a strategy consultant at Bain & Company and a Product Manager for two start-ups.

Charlotte Day

Charlotte is a Marketing Officer supporting the World Wellbeing Movement. She has previously worked in multiple roles within a Higher Education context and has a Psychology BSc from the University of Sussex.

Studying during the COVID-19 pandemic, Charlotte’s research investigated the impact of the pandemic and consequent university closures on the grade attainment and learning experiences of students from different socioeconomic status households.

Isaac Parkes

Isaac Parkes is a Pre-Doctoral Research Assistant at the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. He completed an MSc in Behavioural Science from the London School of Economics, where he also holds a Research Assistant position at the Centre for Economic Performance. His research examines subjective measures of wellbeing, with a focus on understanding the interpersonal incomparability of scale responses.

Before commencing his Master’s studies, Isaac read Economics BSc at the University of Bristol, where his research focused on non-market valuation of environmental resources. Alongside academia, Isaac has worked with the UN Environment Programme and the Nordic Council of Ministers on projects supporting the transition to sustainable living in Europe.

Annette Riziki

Annette Riziki is a Research Assistant at the Wellbeing Research Centre and a DPhil student in the Education department at the University of Oxford. Her current DPhil research focuses on children’s and teachers’ wellbeing and educational outcomes in emergency contexts.

Before commencing her DPhil research, Annette completed an MSc in Child Development at the University of Oxford, looking at the role of teacher behavioural and cognitive judgments on the learning trajectories of Black primary school students in England. Her research interests are education access and the wellbeing of children and teachers in resettlement and asylum contexts. In line with this, her past research has focused on the integration and resettlement processes of refugees and immigrants within Canada.

Dr. Caspar Kaiser

Caspar is an Assistant Professor with the Behavioural Science Group at Warwick Business School. He is also a research fellow at Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre, a research associate at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, an associate member of Nuffield College, and a trustee of the Happier Lives Institute.

His research focuses on the measurement and determinants of wellbeing.

Regarding measurement, he works on improving the comparability of survey data on people’s feelings and analyses whether such data can measure welfare cardinally. Concerning determinants, he investigates how social comparisons and inequalities, particularly with respect to people’s incomes, shape wellbeing.

Beyond these foci, he is interested in the wider normative implications of using subjective data, questions of welfare measurement more generally, the determinants and consequences of social mobility, as well as developments in causal inference and machine learning.

Caspar holds a DPhil in Social Policy from Nuffield College and the Department of Social Policy & Intervention. Brian Nolan (INET, Oxford) and Maarten Vendrik (SBE, Maastricht) supervised his doctorate. He was previously an Assistant Professor at the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Tilburg University.

The HSBC Research Fellowship is supported by HSBC Life.

Leoni Boyle

Leoni is the Executive Assistant and Office Manager at the Wellbeing Research Centre. Leoni graduated with an MSc in Child Development and Education from the University of Oxford, and a BA in Education from the University of Cambridge. She is currently studying part-time for a PhD in Education at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests focus around the advocation for children, particularly marginalised children, within cultural contexts where social stigmas might act as a barrier to these individuals being fully recognised and supported within society.

Cherise Regier

Cherise Regier is a PhD candidate in Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral thesis examines the impact of labour market policies on worker wellbeing using quantitative methods, with a focus on interventions that aim to promote employee voice in the workplace. She is particularly interested in the political economy of worker wellbeing across high-income countries and wellbeing public policy theory.

Before commencing her doctoral studies, Cherise studied at the University of Toronto, where she earned a Master of Public Policy from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and a Master of Industrial Relations and Human Resources from the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management. Alongside her academic endeavours, Cherise worked as a Policy Analyst for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

Micah Kaats

Micah is a Research Associate at the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford. He has also worked as an Analyst at the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen and Research Assistant at the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization (EHERO). Micah is committed to developing evidence-based tools for public and private decision-makers to promote subjective wellbeing. He holds two Master’s degrees in Economic Policy and Applied Ethics from Utrecht University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from UPenn. He has contributed to academic publications and reports on subjective wellbeing, cost-benefit analysis, and policy evaluation. His research interests converge around topics in health, work, aging, and migration. He is based in Amsterdam.

Dr. Wanying Zhou

Wanying Zhou completed her PhD in Psychology and Education at the University of Cambridge and holds an MSc in Counseling and Mental Health Services from the University of Pennsylvania. She is interested in better understanding and improving wellbeing. Her PhD thesis focuses on adolescent mental health and wellbeing. It uses theoretical modelling to examine the relationship between wellbeing, academic achievement, and social emotional skills and further evaluates mindfulness-based interventions in improving these factors. In addition to this, she studies the conceptualisation of wellbeing and how this concept is understood cross-culturally given the globalised complexities of the 21st Century.

Her approach to research has a strong interdisciplinary nature and embraces both qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods. She also serves as a coordinator for the Cambridge Wellbeing and Inclusive Group and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Youth and Adolescents.