Trustees

Jim McManus is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and is the Director of Public Health for Hertfordshire. He is Visiting Senior Clinical Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire and a Visiting Research Fellow at Heythrop College, University of London, working on the links between psychology, health and faith. He is a Membership Secretary of the Association of Directors of Public Health and co-Chair of the British Psychological Society’s Cross Divisional Network on Applied Psychology in Public Health. Jim has worked on public health projects in the voluntary sector, NGOs, commercial sector, NHS and local government since 1990. He is committed to realising the benefits health psychology can bring to population health. Outside work his interests are Scots history, languages and powerlifting.

Michelle Constable is a Chartered Health Psychologist and the Head of the Behaviour Change Unit at Hertfordshire County Council. She provides strategic leadership, both locally and nationally, on the application of behavioural and social science across local authorities, leading on embedding behavioural science in practice to improve population outcomes. Michelle is a co-founder and Trustee of the Behavioural Science and Public Health Network (BSPHN) and Chair of the national Behaviour Change Leads Group. She is also a lead author of the Public Health England strategy “Improving People’s Health: Applying behavioural and social sciences to improve population health and wellbeing in England” (2018) and a member of the Strategy Oversight Group.

Neil Howlett conducts research in the areas of physical activity and behaviour change. Neil has expertise in behaviour change methodology including: designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions to help individuals, communities, and populations change a range of health behaviours; systematic reviews and meta-analyses; broad knowledge of behaviour change theories; training a range of health professionals in behaviour change and communication skills; input into national guidance and strategy documents; pragmatic evaluations in public health. He is principal investigator on Department of Health, Lottery, and Local Enterprise Partnership-funded grants with the charity HENRY, evaluating volunteer-delivered parenting programmes and developing a new teenage programme focused on physical activity and eating behaviours. Additionally, Neil co-led the design, implementation, and evaluation of the Sport England-funded Active Herts programme. Neil has been a successful lead or co-applicant on nearly £5 million of grants. A key current project is the NIHR-funded PHIRST grant. PHIRST is a responsive public health evaluation team working with local authorities to evaluate services / programmes. Neil is currently leading the PHIRST evaluation of COVID-19 / Vaccine champions and community participatory action research programmes in Southampton.

Amanda Bunten (CPsychol) is a Chartered Health Psychologist and the Director of Behavioural Ethics at GSK where she is leading the implementation of Behavioural Science within risk management and compliance. Amanda has 14 years of experience in applying behavioural science to real world challenges to improve health and wellbeing, manage risk, decision making and culture change, working across the NHS, local and national government within England and the pharmaceutical industry. She is currently working on embedding the values of the organisation to drive values-based decisions; the delivery of the global mandatory learning programme to improve the ability to recognise and manage risk; delivering a new code of conduct truly bringing effective risk management and culture together; and applying behavioural science to key enterprise risk areas. She is deeply committed to working collaboratively building partnerships cross academia, public, private and voluntary sectors, building evidence to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of the population whilst tackling health inequalities.