Deborah A. Hall

Deborah Hall joined Heriot-Watt University in 2021 as Malaysia's first Professor of Positive Psychology. Deborah graduated from Brunel University UK with a first class honours degree in Psychology and completed a PhD in Psychology at Birmingham University in 1996. In her early career, she established a world leading research programme in auditory fMRI, funded by the Medical Research Council. In 2009, she left to establish cognitive neuroscience teaching and research in the Division of Psychology at Nottingham Trent University. Deborah spent over 8 years at the University of Nottingham; 6 years leading a prestigious translational research centre funded by the UK government's National Institute for Health Research and 2½ years as Vice Provost (Research and Knowledge Exchange) at the Malaysia campus. Her research spans a range of topics that touch on aspects of individual and societal well-being. She is recognised as a world leading expert on tinnitus, but other examples of her research include the relevance of positive soundscapes, developing a manualised psychological treatment to upskill audiologists in the NHS, and advocating to bring the public voice into clinical research. Throughout, she places great value on interdisciplinary collegiate team working. Deborah was awarded the British Society of Audiology Thomas Simm Littler prize in 2010 for her services to audiology, and gave the Tonndorf Lecture at the 1st World Tinnitus Congress / 12th International Tinnitus Seminar, Warsaw, in 2017. She has received the Marie and Jack Shapiro Prize from the British Tinnitus Association on a number of occasions, most recently in 2020 for the publication of the QUIET1 trials which compared the novel drug AUT00063 with a placebo in a robust, statistically-powered, multi-centre randomised trial.