Elizabeth Broadbent

Elizabeth Broadbent is professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland (NZ), a position she has held since 2019, having previously served as associate professor (2016–2018), senior lecturer (2010–2015), and lecturer (2005–2009) in the same department. Before her academic career, she worked as a researcher studying fatigue in international flight operations at Air New Zealand (2000–2005), a design engineer at Robotechnology (1997–1998), and a support engineer at TransPower (1995).

She received her PhD in Health Psychology from the University of Auckland (NZ) in 2005, an MSc with first-class honours in Health Psychology from the University of Auckland (NZ) in 2002, a Graduate Diploma in Arts in Psychology from Massey University (NZ) in 2000, and a BE with honours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Canterbury (NZ) in 1995.

Elizabeth’s research focuses on patients’ perceptions of illness, human-robot interaction, embodied conversational agents, psychological interventions, social support, embodied cognition, and psychoneuroimmunology.

She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi New Zealand and Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (US) in 2022. In 2017, she received a Fulbright Senior Award to study companion robots in Boston (US), and in 2010 held visiting scholar positions at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, both in Boston (US). She also received the Early Career Research Excellence Award from the University of Auckland (NZ) in 2008 and the Early Career Award from the International Congress of Behavioural Medicine (DE) in 2004.