Dr Denise Dillon - Research Portfolio

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About

Dr Denise Dillon is the Associate Dean of Research (and Research Education) at the JCU Singapore campus and she is also a Member of the JCU Academic Board. After serving as Head of Academic Group for psychology, arts and education for almost 10 years and as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Tropical Psychology for 2 years, Denise now facilitates and promotes the strategic direction of research within JCUS, improvements in the quality and impact of that research, and the growth of local, national and international research collaborations. Additionally, Denise provides leadership to academic staff and HDR students.

Her primary research focus is biophilia (love for life and lifelike processes) pertaining to both natural and built environments, and Denise is a certified Forest Therapy Guide and is active in the community as one of three pioneers of forest therapy guiding in Singapore. In March 2016 Denise presented a public lecture on the broader background of research in her area, titled The Peace of Wild Things: Attention Restoration Through Biophilic Design. In May 2017, Denise, as leader of the biophilia research cluster at JCU Singapore, hosted Sue Thomas as a Visiting Scholar. During her visit, Sue (author of Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace) presented a public lecture on her key topic: Living well with nature in a wired world: an introduction to technobiophilia.

Denise is currently Primary Advisor for 2 Doctor of Psychology (Clinical Psychology) candidates and Advisor Mentor for two PhD candidates. She has extensive supervisory experience in fourth-year and graduate research, having supervised more than 90 fourth-year students and 12 graduate-level students to completion (as at December, 2020. Graduate students include those in the Master and Doctor of Clinical Psychology courses, as well as research doctorates (PhD).

CURRENT PROJECTS

Survey: Feelings About Nature and Plants

We are seeking responses from Singaporean citizens and Permanent Residents aged 18 and above. The study is being conducted by Dr Denise Dillon and A/Prof Louise Phillips who are both researchers at James Cook University in Singapore. The project has approval from the JCU Human Research Ethics Committee (approval no. H8023). Visit the survey.

Recent Projects include the following:

Connecting the Dots: Do Context and Connectedness Influence Pro-environmental Behaviours? (JCU Singapore Cross-collaboration Grant $4424; McShane, Dillon, Koh, Green)
On a Trajectory Towards Zero Waste: Changing Behaviours Through Active Citizenry (JCU Singapore Cross-collaboration Grant $3000; Dillon, Swinbourne)
Virtual reality greenspaces: Does level of immersion affect directed attention restoration in VR environments?
A Preliminary Validation of Guided Forest Therapy as an Effective and Beneficial Practice in a Healing Setting (co-funded by an internal research grant from JCU Singapore and SkillsFuture SG and with the in-kind support of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital through the use of their 'garden in a hospital')
Impact of nature imagery and mystery on attention restoration in young adults
Community gardening: Stress, well-being and resilience potentials
Parental connection and attitudes toward nature and children’s time spent in nature
Exposing the bear in the woods: an exploratory analysis on animal metaphors
A room with a view: Do nature views influence moral compassion?

Denise is seeking expressions of interest from motivated individuals in a potential PhD project on the validation of nature and forest therapy.

Contact me to discuss a potential fee waiver if interested in this specific project.

Denise also has a keen interest in the field of ecocriticism, and presented two papers at the September 2017 Tropics of the Imagination conference in Singapore.

Tropical Tribulation and the Ruptured Rapture: Fouled Fecundity in Atwood's Oryx and Crake
“Footprint”: The Apocalyptic Imprint of End as Immanent in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

Community Outreach

On 7 November 2020 Denise presented an invited lecture to 60 international students at the Virtual Summer Course on Tropical Forestry offered by the Fahutan IPB University in Indonesia, and was also an invited judge on Prototype Concept and Photography panels for the Youth Initiative Contest (YOC2020).

In March 2019, Dr Denise Dillon was elected as Research Chair for the Singapore Psychological Society Council 2019-2021, and is responsible for organising the annual SPS Student Research Awards in October 2019 and 2020.

In September 2018, Denise contributed to the International Forest Bathing Day as a speaker and Forest Therapy Guide at our Singapore event at the Botanic Gardens. She was also an invited speaker at the Biophilia and Nature Education Symposium in January 2019, and again conducted a guided Forest Therapy walk at the event. Denise presented sessions on Forest Therapy and biophilic design at the Singapore American School's Wellness Summit in August, 2019.

Media Mentions

Oct 2020 Nature immersion: Improving your life with the great outdoors
Oct 2020 Want to improve your wellbeing? Give nature a chance
July 2020 Hard Talk with Environmental Psychologist on Biophilia and COVID-19
April 2019 SG Psych Stuff invited post on Environmental Psychology
June 2017 Interview with Lianhe Zaobao on the healing effects of greenery (in Chinese)
May 2016 Straits Times feature 'Natural Settings Lower Stress'

Peer Review

Judge for 2018 & 2020 Psychology panels, Undergraduate Awards
In 2015 my Honours supervisee, Paul Victor Patinadan, was chosen for a Highly Commended award for the paper based on his thesis, "Friends, Food or Worth Fighting For? A Proposed Stereotype Content Model for Nonhuman Animals"

Teaching

PY2109: The World around Us: Environmental Psychology (Level 2; SIN)
RM8301: Research Planning in Tropical Health and Medicine (Level 8; SIN)
RM8302: Research Project in Tropical Health and Medicine (Level 8; SIN)

Interests

Teaching

Denise's key teaching focus is environmental psychology, with additional teaching experience in the areas of personality and individual psychology, statistics and research methods, memory & cognition, health and social psychology, lifespan development, and effective writing.

Experience

2020 to present - Chair IACUC, JCU Singapore (Singapore)
2018 to present - Associate Dean Research/Research Education, JCU (Singapore)
2017 to present - Member of Academic Board, JCU (Australia)
2015 to present - Senior Lecturer, JCU (Singapore)
2019 to 2021 - Research Chair, Singapore Psychological Society (Singapore)
2016 to 2018 - Research Cluster Leader: Biophilia Research Cluster, JCU (Singapore)
2015 to 2018 - Head of Academic Group Psychology and Education, JCU (Singapore)
2015 to 2017 - Managing Editor, Journal of Tropical Psychology
2008 to 2014 - Associate Dean of Psychology, JCU (Singapore)
2008 to 2014 - Lecturer, JCU (Singapore)
2007 - Contract data analysis consultant, Self-employed (Cairns, Australia)
2007 - Contract research assistant, JCU (Cairns, Australia)
2003 to 2007 - Lecturer/Associate Lecturer/Subject Coordinator, JCU (Cairns, Australia)
2004 - Contract interviewer, QADREC, School of Population Health, UQ (Cairns, Australia)
2003 - Child Protection Officer, Dept of Families (Cairns, Australia)
2001 to 2003 - Volunteer Supervisor on Call, Lifeline (Cairns, Australia)
2000 to 2002 - Volunteer Telephone Counsellor, Lifeline (Cairns, Australia)

Honours

Awards

2017 - JCU Singapore Academic of the Year
2002 - War Widows Guild of Australia (QLD) Cairns Sub Branch prize for highest achievement in English Literature in a 1st, 2nd & 3rd year sequence
2000 - Ross Smith prize for highest mark in a third-year English Literature subject

Memberships

2020 - Chair, JCU Singapore Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)
2020 - Accredited Research Manager (Foundation)
2019 - Research Chair, Singapore Psychological Society Council
2017 - JCU Academic Board
2017 - Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs Supporting Member
2013 - Wallace Stevens Society
2013 - Association for the Study of Literature & Environment (ASLE)
2012 - Singapore Psychological Society (Full Member No. FM01241D)

Other

2015 to 2017 - Managing Editor, Journal of Tropical Psychology
2012 - Visiting Scholar, Northwestern University (Evanston, ILL)
2012 - Visiting Scholar, Harvard (Cambridge, MA)
2005 to 2008 - HCSNet Scholarship (annual conference travel)
2003 to 2008 - JCU Faculty postgraduate scholarship (annual stipend)

Publications

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

Dillon D and Pang J (in press) Deer who are distant: Response congruency to relative pronouns across human and nonhuman entities. Society and Animals, , DOI:10.1163/15685306-12341482.
Koay W and Dillon D (2020) Community gardening: stress, well-being and resilience potentials. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (18), Article: 6740, DOI:10.3390/ijerph17186740.
Lim P, Dillon D and Chew P (2020) A guide to nature immersion: psychological and physiological benefits. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (16), Article: 5989, DOI:10.3390/ijerph17165989.
Jacobs G and Dillon D (2019) Promoting critical literacy: the case of promotional materials for burgers. Ecolinguística: Revista brasileira de ecologia e linguagem, 5 (1), pp. 16-27.
Chew P, Dillon D and Swinbourne A (2018) An examination of the internal consistency and structure of the Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS). PLoS ONE, 13 (3), Article: e0194195, DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0194195.
Dillon D (2018) “Footprint”: the apocalyptic imprint of end as immanent in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 17 (2), pp. 52-61, DOI:10.25120/etropic.17.2.2018.3657.
Chew P, Swinbourne A and Dillon D (2017) An absence of attentional bias: statistics anxiety is unique among anxieties. Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis, 13 (2), pp. 91-112.
Dillon D (2016) The author as the novel self: Shirley Lim's Sister Swing. Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies, 7, Article: 8, pp. 78-87.
Chew P and Dillon D (2014) Reliability and validity of the Statistical Anxiety Scale among students in Singapore and Australia. Journal of Tropical Psychology, 4, Article: e7, pp. 1-7, DOI:10.1017/jtp.2014.7.

Book Chapters

Dillon D and Koh G (2020) A journal of the COVID year: what can we learn from previous pandemics? In: How to Prepare for the Next Pandemic: behavioural sciences insights for practitioners and policymakers. World Scientific, Singapore, pp. 3-21

Conference Papers

Goh S, Dillon D and Goh S (2016) Predicting foreign language anxiety: trait emotional intelligence and Big-Five personality traits. Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific English Language Teaching Conference. In: ELTC 2016: Asia-Pacific English Language Teaching Conference, 11-13 June 2016, Shanghai, China
Chew P and Dillon D (2015) Statistics anxiety and attitudes toward statistics. Proceedings of the 4th Annual International Conference on Cognitive and Behavioral Psychology. In: CBP 2015: 4th Annual International Conference on Cognitive and Behavioral Psychology, 9-10 February 2015, Singapore

More: ResearchOnline@JCU stores 31+ research outputs authored by Dr Denise Dillon from 2005 onwards.

Supervision

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

Breaking down the mindfulness construct and examining factors influencing mindfulness (PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
Measuring Emotional Dysregulation In Early Childhood (PhD , Primary Advisor)
A Virtual Reality Approach to Improving Public Speaking Skills (PhD , Advisor Mentor)
Towards the Development of Quality Tourism Workforce: The Case of Vietnam (PhD , Advisor Mentor)
Buddhist Religiosity and Psychological Well-being: Uncovering paths to Well-being from the beliefs and practices of Chinese Buddhism (PhD , Advisor Mentor)
Academic expectation and suicide behaviour among Singaporean and Malaysian youths (PhD , Advisor Mentor)