Julie McLeod (she/her) is a PhD researcher in the field of Health Psychology, using behaviour change science and intervention development to improve the sexual and gender health of LGBTQI+ youth in a digital world. Her PhD focuses on understanding the barriers and facilitators to LGBTQI+ youth engaging with digital sexual and reproductive health care and gender health care through qualitative research and systematic development of recommendations to overcome the barriers and enhance the facilitators. Her supervisory team is comprised of Health Psychology research experts Dr Jen MacDonald (GCU) and Professor Paul Flowers (University of Strathclyde), and specialists in Sexual Health, HIV, and eHealth research, Professor Claudia Estcourt (GCU) and Dr Jo Gibbs (University College London).
Julie began her PhD in 2022 in the School of Health and Life Sciences (SHLS) after attaining a 2:1 in Psychology (MA) at the University of Glasgow in 2020 and a distinction in Clinical Health Psychology (MSc) at the University of Strathclyde in 2021. Her PhD follows her work within the SEQUENCE Digital research programme (2021-2022), understanding barriers and facilitators to underserved populations accessing and using online sexual healthcare.
As part of the Research Centre for Health (ReaCH), Julie’s research sits within the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses (SHBBV) group and aims to reduce health inequalities. She is a graduate member of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and has presented her work at nationally acclaimed conferences, such as the British Association of Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) conference 2022 and the BPS Division of Health Psychology conference 2023. Julie is working on three papers for publishing in internationally recognised journals.
Research Interests: inequalities, LGBTQI+, gender equality, sexual health, behaviour change, intervention development, eHealth.