BSc(Hons) MSc MRes PhD ProfCertHSCMgt MBPsS PPABP CMBE MIHM FCMI FRSA CPsychol

Maria is a Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Professor in Organisational Behaviour at the University of Nottingham. She is an organisational ethnographer, specialising in the behaviour of health organisations, healthcare leadership, management and policy, and qualitative evaluation of quality improvement. Maria is Director of the University of Nottingham Centre for Interprofessional Education and Learning.

Maria was formerly the Founding Director of the  Centre for Organisational Resilience at the University of Lincoln, a research, consultancy and member organisation, addressing drivers of economic prosperity through the creation and dissemination of evidence, with a key focus on workforce wellbeing and Board capability. She was also Head of Learning, Research and Evaluation at the Social Innovation Partnership.

Previously, Maria worked as a Quality Improvement Research Fellow and Programme Lead for the Master's in Public Health at King's College London, where she led several modules in health management and leadership. Maria's PhD was a study of the impact of the Quality and Outcomes Framework on General Practitioners and a comment on the limitations of using numerical targets to drive improvement in health.

Prior to academia, Maria worked as an interim head of services, projects and programmes in health, and in prison and forensic mental health. Her last interim post was as Senior Head of Projects at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, where she led the restructure of the administrative teams. Recently, she was seconded to Guy's and St Thomas' to lead a research and communications programme.

Maria, who is a Coaching Psychologist, has been carrying out independent organisational development, management and research consultancy work on behalf of public, private and third sector clients for over 15 years. Much of her recent consultancy work through her company Researching People, centres around people development and creating more compassionate, resilient teams and organisations. Her company also leads several qualitative evaluations nationally, for instance recently completing evaluations on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, as well as Harrow Integrated Care.

Maria also delivers invited talks, teaching, training and workshops, typically centred around 'soft' skills development and qualitative evaluation in health. She recently facilitated a series of workshops in creating compassionate NHS organisations on behalf of the British Psychological Society.

Maria was formerly the Evaluation Advisor for The Health Foundation's Scaling Up Round 3 programme, and the Independent Evaluator for their Innovating for Improvement programme. She was also Principal Co-Investigator on one of their funded improvement projects - Care Effectiveness Southwark. Maria sits on several health research panels and advisory groups nationally and is a Visiting Fellopw at the Community and Health Research Unit, University of Lincoln.

Maria also develops the person-centred mental health outcome measure PSYCHLOPS.org.uk, a tool which has been used in a range of settings, including by WHO in areas of international conflict.

Outside of her work, Maria is an active School Governor.

Professional memberships include:

Fellow Royal Society of Arts
Chartered Member British Psychological Society
Full Member Division for Teachers and Researchers in Psychology
Full Member Special Group in Coaching Psychology
Member Qualitative Research Methods Section
Member Division of Occupational Psychology
Associate Work Foundation
Fellow Chartered Management Institute
Principal Practitioner Association for Business Psychology
Full Member Institute of Healthcare Management
Affiliate Member Academy of Social Sciences
Member Her Majesty’s Prison & Probation Services Research Network
Chartered Management and Business Educator

Visiting positions:

Affiliate Research Fellow, School of Population Health, King's College London
Visiting Fellow, School of Health & Social Care, London Southbank University
Associate, Birmingham Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham
Visiting Lecturer in Health & Business Psychology, University of Westminster
Visiting Lecturer in Health Policy & Management, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine