Dr Heidi Zamzow is a consultant, researcher, and policy analyst with expertise in sustainability and food systems transformation. Heidi joined PBS as a Visiting Fellow after being awarded her PhD in Behavioural Science from LSE in July 2025. Her thesis research applied quantitative and qualitative methodologies to investigate factors influencing how people perceive, process, and respond to information about shifting food norms in the UK, and the social, structural, and perceptual barriers to dietary change.

Heidi comes from a multidisciplinary background spanning the natural and social sciences. She moved from being a biogeochemist researching the impacts of pollution on marine ecosystems to working in science communications, where she specialised in engaging the public on ocean conservation and advocating for evidence-based climate action. As a legislative liaison and spokesperson in the US, she collaborated with diverse stakeholder groups to implement a broad array of policy initiatives, such as installing solar panels on government buildings, drafting legislation to ban hydraulic fracturing, and bringing community choice renewable energy to the central coast of California. She also worked with the Humane Society of the United States on a groundbreaking law requiring better conditions for animals raised for food. In the UK, she served as a behavioural science consultant for university catering to develop sustainable food strategies and interventions, and she contributed evidence and expertise on a tender for increasing policy effectiveness at the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). In addition, she taught courses in economic psychology and consumer psychology at LSE. 

As a Visiting Fellow, Heidi’s focus is on applying behavioural science to accelerate the transition to healthier and more sustainable dietary norms.

Her research aims to explore policy levers at different levels of the food system, with a particular focus on small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and their potential to drive change. In addition, she is interested in investigating behavioural spillovers and unintended consequences from policies and interventions intended to promote sustainable practices.

Heidi also holds an MSc in Societal and Environmental Psychology from LSE, an MS in Chemical Oceanography from California State University, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and a BA in Drama from the University of Washington.