Zoe is a Lecturer in Mental Health at the Research Division of Care in Long-Term Conditions, King’s College London. Her research advances interdisciplinary agendas across the fields of mental health, arts and health, school and community health, and planetary health.

Zoe is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Art Therapy, the official journal of the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT); a role that gives her strategic oversight over the publishing agenda of art therapy research and practice. She is also responsible for managing and maintaining positive working relationships across the editorial board, advisory panels, and peer review network, alongside delivering the annual peer-review training, and supporting and mentoring new authors.

Zoe has over 30 peer-reviewed publications (h-index 14, >600 citations) in high-impact journals, such as JAMA, JMIR, BMC and BMJ. She is also the Lead Editor of the UKRI/AHRC-funded book ‘Arts in nature for children and young people: A guide towards health equality, wellbeing and sustainability’ and the Lead Editor of the International Journal of Art Therapy special issue on nature-based art therapy.

Zoe has been successful in securing internal and external awards to the value of £181,000 as PI/co-PI, including the Imperial College London President’s Award, ESRC Policy Impact Award, ESRC Impact Acceleration Award, and AHRC International Research Fellowship. She is also a co-investigator in the £2.5 million UKRI/AHRC-funded study ‘Arts4Us’ aiming to scale-up evidence-based arts initiatives that support children’s mental health. Zoe’s contribution to this project is the development of the evidence-base and scalability of nature-based arts initiatives.

Zoe is the Deputy Chair of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) Arts, Health, and Wellbeing Steering Committee, which governs the RSPH Special Interest Group in Arts, Health and Wellbeing; a 250-strong body of researchers and practitioners. The committee is responsible for sharing research and best practice through conferences, influencing government policy, and maintaining high-level relationships with the National Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Creative Health, and arts councils. In 2023, Zoe also co-founded the Association of Outdoor Therapy to lead the development of safe, ethical, and sustainable approaches to outdoor therapy.

Prior to joining King’s, Zoe was a Research Fellow at Imperial College London and University College London, where she completed her AHRC postdoctoral research fellowship on ‘Eco-Capabilities: supporting children’s wellbeing through participatory art in nature’. Her professional qualifications include a BEd in Early Childhood Education, MSc in Therapeutic Play, MRes in Health Research, PGCert in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and a PhD in Arts Therapies.

Research interests

• Arts therapies
• Arts in nature
• Mental health school-based and nature-based interventions
• Children & young people's mental health and connection with nature

Enquiring about potential PhD supervision

If you’re thinking of applying for one of our PhD programmes and are looking for potential supervisors, please email nmpc_pgr_enquiries@kcl.ac.uk listing the names of the supervisors you’ve identified as having expertise in your chosen area, along with your CV and a short research proposal. 

Our Postgraduate Research Team will contact supervisors on your behalf and get back to you. If you have any queries in the meantime, please use the email address above, rather than contacting potential PhD supervisors directly, because they are unable to respond to initial enquiries.