I am a community psychologist, researcher and educator working at the intersection of community psychology, social inequality and public life. I am currently an academic in Psychology.

Psychological distress cannot be understood only as an individual problem. I am interested in how austerity, poverty, homelessness, welfare systems, and institutional practices shape people’s lives, and how psychology can respond without losing sight of power, context, and lived experience. Methodologically, I'm situated in participatory action research, qualitative inquiry and creative visual approaches, including photo-elicitation. I am particularly committed to community-based research.

I am the author of Austerity and The Self-Help Industry, and I have books on critical community psychology and the community psychology of loneliness forthcoming from Routledge and Bloomsbury. Austerity received the 2026 British Psychological Society Book Award in the Academic Monograph category. My research and writing have also appeared in peer-reviewed journals and public-facing outlets including The Guardian, Philosophy Now, The Conversation and The Psychologist.

Alongside academia, I have worked across health, safeguarding, local government and community governance. I currently chair the British Psychological Society Senate, and my previous public roles include chairing the Brighton and Hove Health and Wellbeing Board and serving in NHS and safeguarding governance.

Teaching is central to that work: I aim to create critical, inclusive classrooms in which students become independent thinkers and researchers.

Across research, teaching and public engagement, I try to connect scholarship with questions that matter beyond universities, such as who gets heard, how inequalities become normalised, and what psychology might contribute to more democratic and socially just ways of living.

Outside work, I’m a football coach (UEFA qualified). I currently coach a women’s open-age team.

Bruno B. De Oliveira