Jo has worked in the School of Health Sciences as a Research Fellow since 2018. She is currently working on projects funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to develop digital help for quitting smoking in pregnancy. The “eSupport” project is carrying out preliminary work in support of a programme grant application to translate NHS care for pregnancy smoking cessation into a digital package. The "iCO study" is testing a new app that lets people take a daily carbon monoxide (CO) reading and log their use of nicotine products. Recent projects include the NIHR-funded "N-READY" programme, which aims to improve the effectiveness of nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation in pregnancy through better adherence. Jo worked on intervention development and optimisation for N-READY, including development of trial outcome measures.

Prior to joining UEA, Jo was a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge Institute of Public Health, evaluating digital stop smoking interventions including “MiQuit” and “Quit Sense”. From 2006 to 2015, Jo worked in the Research Division at Cambridge Assessment (Examinations Syndicate), leading research on the validity of university admissions tests for medicine and other competitive courses.

Jo has extensive experience carrying out and disseminating research in both academic and business environments and has strengths in quantitative methodology. She has previously taught research design and statistics courses in university and workplace environments and continues to support research students in this capacity.

Jo graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the University of York in 1994 and was awarded a PhD from the University of Newcastle Faculty of Medicine in 2002 for research investigating perceptual body size disturbances in women with eating disorders.

Jo is interested in smoking cessation, addictive behaviours, behaviour change, and quantitative research methods.

Digital smoking cessation interventions (development and evaluation), smoking cessation in pregnancy, quantitative methodology, test construction and validation.