Prof Tom Dickins

Professor of Behavioural Science

Tom Dickins

  • School Faculty of Science and Technology

  • Department Psychology

  • Location London

Research activities

Tom is interested in evolution and behaviour. Overarching questions include:

How should we think about evolution?

How should we apply evolutionary theory to models of behaviour?

Where does development fit into evolutionary accounts?

What is behaviour?

Most recently Tom has been working on specific issues to do with causation in evolutionary accounts and has been developing a long term project on Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) behavioural biology with his research students. 

Tom offers a pathway - Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences - in the MSc by Research programme and supervises PhD students interested in the above questions.


Current Teaching

Module leader for PSY3055 Evolutionary Approaches to Behaviour

Lectures for PSY2008 Contemporary Issues in Psychology

Occasional lectures for various undergraduate and MSc modules in Psychology, and also Natural Sciences.

Final year project supervision; MSc thesis supervision.

Animal Behaviour and Ecology Field Trip lead.

Science in Context seminar series for the postgraduate research student training portfolio.


Biography

Tom was born in Liverpool, many moons ago, and raised variously in Merseyside and ever so briefly in Canada. At 18 years he ventured to London to complete a BSc (Hons) Psychological Sciences (CNAA) degree at the Polytechnic of East London. From there to UCL and Imperial College London to take an MSc in History and Philosophy of Science. A three year hiatus commenced, mostly taken up working for the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education, and then a PhD at Sheffield. This last developed a theoretical model for the evolution of symbolic communication.

Since all of that youthful activity Tom has worked at the universities of Greenwich, London Guildhall, Nottingham Trent, East London and Middlesex. He has been in post at Middlesex since September 2012 as professor of behavioural science. Tom has also achieved a PG Cert in Ecological Survey Techniques from Oxford, to augment field skills.

To learn more: https://tomdickins.net/

Publications

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