Before taking up her post at the University of Northampton, Liz worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, based in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham (September 2012 – August 2018). From September 2012 until the end of February 2015 Liz worked alongside Dr Blaire Morgan on the ‘Attitude for Gratitude’ project, an ambitious research project which canvassed the views of over 10, 000 individuals in the UK.
Liz built on this foundation with ‘Gratitude and Related Character Virtues’, a theoretical and empirical research project examining the mutually reinforcing nature of allied strengths of character (forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, humility and generosity). She designed two school-based interventions to promote compassion and gratitude, in addition to publishing theoretical papers about the relationships between these strengths, one of which was recently published in Theory and Psychology.
Immediately before she came to The University of Northampton, Liz was working on a research project which aims to investigate the factors that motivate moral action in adolescents. Specifically the project focused on the ‘gappiness problem’; addressing what bridges the gap between virtue literacy (knowledge of virtues) and virtuous moral action (acting in a virtuous way).