Professor Alex Gillespie

Alex Gillespie is the Head of Department for Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE. He is Professor of Psychological and Behavioural Science, Editor of Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Visiting Professor II at the Oslo New University, and a founder of the Culture and Risk Research Unit.

His research examines speaking-up and listening, differences of perspective, and misunderstandings. Questions include: How do we escape our own blindspots through dialogue with others? How do we dismiss and ignore each other – so as not to learn from each other? And, more pragmatically, how can technologies support these exchanges of perspective? For example, Alex developed the Healthcare Complaint Analysis Tool, a tool for studying how hospitals can better listen to patients. Methodologically, he analyses high-validity sources of naturally occurring data (interaction transcripts, complaints, diaries, documents, speeches) mixing qualitative analysis with big data techniques and AI.

He has won several awards for his research and innovation projects, and has given keynote speeches at major academic society conferences, including the APA Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology, the International Society for Theoretical Psychology, and the European Health Psychology Society.