Briony Hill

Deputy Head, Health and Social Care Unit and Senior Research Fellow, Monash University
Briony Hill is an ARC DECRA Fellow (2023-25).

She completed her PhD in Health Psychology in 2015 at Deakin University, Australia, exploring a psychosocial and behaviour change approach to preventing excessive gestational weight gain. For her thesis, she was awarded an Alfred Deakin Medal for Doctoral Thesis and an Australian Psychological Society (APS) Health College Award for Excellent Higher Degree Thesis in Health Psychology. Briony received an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in 2016 and completed an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship (2017-2022) in the area of preconception wellbeing. She is currently Deputy Head of the Health and Social Care Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University.

Research interests
Briony's research interests centre on weight stigma before (preconception), during (antenatal) and after pregnancy (postpartum). She is currently leading an ARC Discovery Project, her DECRA and several seeding grants on the topic of weight stigma across the reproductive years. Briony also has a strong interest in health behaviour change and psychosocial wellbeing (including depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms, body image, and coping skills) and understanding the mechanisms that lead to the attainment of healthy diet and physical activity practices and weight for women during their reproductive years. She also applies an Ecological Systems Theory lens to her research to recognise the broader impacts on wellbeing that extend through the community, society and government. As part of this work, Briony is one of only a small handful of researchers globally, pursuing research to understand how we can eradicate weight stigma at all levels to reduce the burden and blame on women across the reproductive life phase. She is an advocate for co-design methods in her research, to ensure relevant stakeholders have their say in the development and implementation of interventions to meet their needs.