Dr. Ria Vaportzis,

Assistant Professor

Biography

I hold an Honours in Psychology from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD in Psychology from Monash University. My PhD thesis investigated dual-tasking in healthy ageing and Huntington's disease. While doing my PhD, I worked as a teaching associate at Monash. Upon completion of my studies, I stayed at Monash and was involved in three multinational clinical studies in Huntington’s disease. In 2014, I got my first job as a postdoctoral researcher at Heriot-Watt University. My project, Tablet for Healthy Ageing, investigated the potential of tablet computers to improve the health and wellbeing in older adults. Following the Tablet for Healthy Ageing project, I was a Research Co-Investigator on a Velux Stiftung funded project, The Intervention Factory (also at Heriot-Watt). The Intervention Factory, considered community-based activities (e.g., computers, physical activity, handicraft, languages) as potential interventions for cognitive ageing. I joined the Psychology team at the University of Bradford in 2018. I led the Back Onside project that aimed to improve health outcomes in vulnerable people through physical activity (funded by UKRI HEIF). I am currently involved in two projects - one as principal investigator - that investigate perspectives of services users and clinicians on electronic mental health records (funded by UKRI Brad-ATTAIN and NIHR).In addition to my psychology qualifications, I hold qualifications in languages, sports journalism, personal training, and dancing.