Dr Tara McGuicken

Tara joined the AAPS CDT after completing an MSc in Environmental Psychology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Her interest in low carbon behaviour change was cemented during her master’s, where she worked on a project advising the Dutch Ministry of Finance on how behavioural insights could encourage the uptake of second hand electric vehicles.

Before that, Tara completed her BSc (Hons) in Psychology at the University of Bath, giving her a strong grounding in the psychological mechanisms behind behaviour and decision making. Motivated by the desire to understand mobility challenges in a more holistic and practical way, she joined the AAPS CDT to expand her expertise beyond psychology and engage with the technological, infrastructural and societal factors shaping sustainable transport.

PhD Focus

Tara’s PhD, Getting the Timing Right: Using ‘Moments of Change’ to Promote Sustainable Travel Behaviour, supervised by Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh and Dr Sam Hampton, explored how disruptions to transport infrastructure can reshape travel behaviour.

Her research focused on how both planned interventions (such as traffic filters and low traffic neighbourhoods) and unplanned disruptions (such as road closures) can break ingrained car use habits, creating opportunities for people to adopt more sustainable modes of travel.

By evaluating anticipated and real-world behavioural responses to transport disruptions, Tara’s work aims to understand:

• how car users adapt to different types of transport disruptions,

• why some disruptions do (not) lead to long term shifts towards sustainable travel,

• and how policymakers can design interventions that support positive behaviour change.

Her research ultimately seeks to provide practical, evidence based guidance for transport planners and policymakers hoping to reduce car dependency and promote greener mobility choices.

Looking Forward

Over the next 12 months, Tara is looking forward to starting a postdoctoral researcher in the Environmental Psychology group at the University of Groningen, where she will apply her interdisciplinary skills to research the social dynamics of flexible energy communities that use EVs to store and trade energy.

Longer-term, Tara hopes to continue working at the intersection of psychology, policy, and mobility—contributing to the development of interventions and strategies that enable more sustainable travel choices. She aspires to use her cross disciplinary training to make a meaningful impact on the future of transport.

The Reflection on AAPS

Tara reflects on her time in AAPS as deeply transformative. Coming from a purely psychology background, she began the CDT with narrowly focused ideas—but exposure to engineering, systems thinking, and policy broadened her perspective and strengthened her research.

She highlights the AAPS community as a major influence: “Being exposed to such a huge range of knowledge and experience has been amazing.”

Working alongside people from multiple disciplines helped Tara develop a more holistic approach to understanding sustainable travel, integrating psychological factors with policies and built environment considerations.

Tara credits this multidimensional learning environment with giving her the tools she will carry into her future career: the ability to understand problems from multiple perspectives, communicate research accessibly, and collaborate effectively across sectors.