
Dr Melissa Marselle
Academic and research departments
Environmental Psychology Research Group (EPRG), School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.About
Biography
Dr Melissa Marselle is a Lecturer in Environmental Psychology. Her research focuses on the health benefits of nature and biodiversity, as well as the psychology of sustainability.
She gained a BA in Psychology at Oregon State University (USA)(1999-2003) before moving to the UK to complete a Master’s degree in Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey (2003-2004) and a PhD in Environmental Psychology from De Montfort University (2010-2014). Her PhD, under the supervision of Dr Katherine Irvine and Prof Sara Warber, MD, evaluated the psychological well-being benefits of group walks in nature.
Melissa has 12 years’ experience as an interdisciplinary researcher. Upon completing her MSc, Melissa worked as a research assistant on the World Trade Centre 9/11 Evacuation Study at the University of Liverpool (2004-2007), and a research fellow at the University of Salford (2007-2010) on the ‘City Centre Crime’ and ‘Positive Soundscapes’ projects where she combined environmental psychology with design thinking and research. Upon completing her PhD, Melissa undertook three postdoctoral research positions: investigating implicit and explicit attributes to climate change at the Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University (2014-2015), investigating university student safety and well-being at the School of Arts & Media, University of Salford (2015-2017), and investigating the mental health benefits of biodiversity at the Department of Ecosystem Services, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) (2017-2020).
In 2020, Melissa returned to the UK to work as a Lecturer in Psychological Well-being at De Montfort University. She joined the University of Surrey in April 2021.
Areas of specialism
My qualifications
Affiliations and memberships
News
In the media
ResearchResearch interests
My research focuses on the health benefits of nature and biodiversity, as well as the psychology of sustainability.
Health benefits of nature and biodiversity
There is considerable evidence that contact with nature can benefit human health and wellbeing. But less is known about which types and qualities of nature influence health. Such information would help urban planners and public health professionals to plan, manage and prescribe urban green space as a nature-based intervention to improve human health.
My research addresses questions such as:
- Which types of green and blue spaces influence mental health and well-being?
- What are the mental health benefits of biodiversity?
- How does nature and biodiversity influence human health? What are the mediating pathways?
- Does this the best ‘dose’ of nature for a positive benefit?
- Do the ways in which we experience nature or biodiversity (e.g. visual or auditory, indirect or direct, incidentally or intentionally) influence our outcomes?
- Environmental neuroscience – how does the brain react to biodiversity?
The psychology of sustainability
Nature and biodiversity are crucial for human health and wellbeing. But biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, threatening the human health. As human activities are responsible for biodiversity loss and climate change, the solution to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation lies in transformative changes in people's behaviour. But the behavioural sciences are rarely used in conservation research. Consequently, behaviour change interventions for nature conservation, and ambitious international conservation policies, often fail because they are poorly informed by behavioural change theory.
My research addresses questions such as:
- Why do national and international sustainability polices fail to achieve their goal?
- What behaviour change interventions are included in national and international sustainability polices? Are key interventions known from psychology to be effective being under-used? Are less effective interventions being overused?
- How can national and international sustainability polices be improved through the use of psychological theory?
Research projects
Dr. FOREST aims to:
- Study the effects and underlying mechanisms with which tree diversity in temperate forests influences human health and well-being;
- Understand and predict the effects of global climate change, air pollution and other change factors on biodiversity-related health issues;
- Evaluate and define tree diversity benefits to human health and well-being, and communicate these findings to local and high-level international stakeholders.
For several years, papers have been published about the positive impact of greenness on health, including some synthesis and systematic reviews. Yet, none of them has so far addressed the question of the type of habitats and components that have a significant (and preferably positive) effect on mental health and well-being. This is important in order to provide recommendations to designers and managers of green and blue space in and around cities.
An Expert Working Group conducted two systematic reviews (blue and green) to answer this question.
Research collaborations
Dr Katherine Irvine, The James Hutton Institute, UK
Prof. Sara Warber, University of Michigan, USA
Prof. Aletta Bonn, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany
Dr Agathe Colleony & Dr Assaf Shwartz, Technion Institute of Technology, Israel
Research interests
My research focuses on the health benefits of nature and biodiversity, as well as the psychology of sustainability.
Health benefits of nature and biodiversity
There is considerable evidence that contact with nature can benefit human health and wellbeing. But less is known about which types and qualities of nature influence health. Such information would help urban planners and public health professionals to plan, manage and prescribe urban green space as a nature-based intervention to improve human health.
My research addresses questions such as:
- Which types of green and blue spaces influence mental health and well-being?
- What are the mental health benefits of biodiversity?
- How does nature and biodiversity influence human health? What are the mediating pathways?
- Does this the best ‘dose’ of nature for a positive benefit?
- Do the ways in which we experience nature or biodiversity (e.g. visual or auditory, indirect or direct, incidentally or intentionally) influence our outcomes?
- Environmental neuroscience – how does the brain react to biodiversity?
The psychology of sustainability
Nature and biodiversity are crucial for human health and wellbeing. But biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, threatening the human health. As human activities are responsible for biodiversity loss and climate change, the solution to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation lies in transformative changes in people's behaviour. But the behavioural sciences are rarely used in conservation research. Consequently, behaviour change interventions for nature conservation, and ambitious international conservation policies, often fail because they are poorly informed by behavioural change theory.
My research addresses questions such as:
- Why do national and international sustainability polices fail to achieve their goal?
- What behaviour change interventions are included in national and international sustainability polices? Are key interventions known from psychology to be effective being under-used? Are less effective interventions being overused?
- How can national and international sustainability polices be improved through the use of psychological theory?
Research projects
Dr. FOREST aims to:
- Study the effects and underlying mechanisms with which tree diversity in temperate forests influences human health and well-being;
- Understand and predict the effects of global climate change, air pollution and other change factors on biodiversity-related health issues;
- Evaluate and define tree diversity benefits to human health and well-being, and communicate these findings to local and high-level international stakeholders.
For several years, papers have been published about the positive impact of greenness on health, including some synthesis and systematic reviews. Yet, none of them has so far addressed the question of the type of habitats and components that have a significant (and preferably positive) effect on mental health and well-being. This is important in order to provide recommendations to designers and managers of green and blue space in and around cities.
An Expert Working Group conducted two systematic reviews (blue and green) to answer this question.
Research collaborations
Dr Katherine Irvine, The James Hutton Institute, UK
Prof. Sara Warber, University of Michigan, USA
Prof. Aletta Bonn, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany
Dr Agathe Colleony & Dr Assaf Shwartz, Technion Institute of Technology, Israel
Teaching
I largely teach on the MSc Environmental Psychology programme. I teach about the health benefits of nature in the module 'Key Questions in Environmental Psychology' (PSY3072/PSYM137), the Behaviour Change Wheel in 'Psychology of Sustainable Development' (PSYM067), and design against crime on 'Psychology of Planning and Architecture' module.
I also am the Dissertation Tutor for the Psychology Undergraduate Dissertation (PSY3065).
Publications
Highlights
2022
Irvine, K.N., Fisher, D., Marselle, M.R, Currie, M., Colley, K., & Warber, S.L. (2022). Social Isolation of Older Adults: A qualitative study of the effects of group outdoor health walks on social wellbeing. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(9), 5353. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19095353
2021
Perino, A., Pereira, H.M., Felipe-Lucia, M., Kim, H., Kuehl, H., Marselle, M … & Bonn, A. (2021) Biodiversity Post-2020: Closing the gap between global targets and national-level implementation. Conservation Letters, e12848. DOI: 10.1111/conl.12848
Richter, A., Comay, O., Svenningsen, C.S., Coilling Larsen, C., Hecker, S., Tottrup, A.P., Pe’er, G., Dunn, R.R., Bonn, A., & Marselle, M.R. (2021). Motivation and support in citizen science insect monitoring: A cross-country study. Biological Conservation, 263, 109325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109325
Uebel, K., Marselle, M., Dean, A.J., Rhodes, J., & Bonn, A. (2021). Urban green space soundscapes and their perceived restorativeness. People and Nature 3 (3), 756-769. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10215
Marselle, M.R, Lindley, S.J., Cook, P.A. & Bonn, A. (2021). Biodiversity and Health in the Urban Environment. Current Environmental Health Reports, 8, 146-156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-021-00313-9
Marselle, M., Hartig, T., Cox, D.T.C., de Bell, S., Knapp, S., Lindley, S., Triguero-Mas, M. ... & Bonn, A. (2021). Pathways linking biodiversity to human health: A conceptual framework. Environment International, 150, 106420. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106420
Methorst, J., Bonn, A., Marselle, M., Böhning-Gaese, K., & Rehdanz, K. (2021). Species richness is positively related to mental health – A study for Germany. Landscape and Urban Planning, 211, 104084. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104084
2020
Marselle, M.R., Bowler, D.E., Watzema, J., Eichenberg, D., Kirsten, T., & Bonn, A. (2020). Urban street tree biodiversity and antidepressant prescriptions. Scientific Reports, 10, 22445. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79924-5
Marselle, M.R., Turbe, A., Shwartz, A., Bonn, A., & Colléony, A. (2020). Addressing behavior in pollinator conservation policies to combat the implementation gap.Conservation Biology, 35, 610-622. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13581
Irvine, K.N., Marselle, M.R., Melrose, A., & Warber, S.L (2020). Group Outdoor Health Walks Using Activity Trackers: Measurement and Implementation Insight from a Mixed Methods Feasibility Study.International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17, 2515. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072515
Edited Books
Marselle, M.R., Stadler, J., Korn, H., Irvine, K.N., & Bonn, A. (Eds). Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02318-8
Book chapters
Marselle, M.R. (2019). Theories of biodiversity and mental health and well-being relationships. In: Marselle, Stadler, Korn, Irvine and Bonn (Eds). Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, Springer Nature.
Marselle, M.R, Martens, D., Dallimer, M., & Irvine, K.N. (2019). Review of the mental health and well-being benefits of biodiversity. In: Marselle, Stadler, Korn, Irvine and Bonn (Eds). Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, Springer Nature.
Marselle, M.R, Stadler, J. Horst, K., Irvine, K.N. & Bonn, A. (2019). Biodiversity and health in the face of climate change - Perspectives for science, policy and practice. In: Marselle, Stadler, Korn, Irvine and Bonn (Eds). Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, Springer Nature.
In Green and blue spaces and mental health: new evidence and perspectives for action. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe.
People and Nature, 3, 756-769
Current Environmental Health Reports, 8, 146–156
Environment International, 150, 106420.
Landscape and Urban Planning, 211, 104084.
Scientific Reports, 10, 22445.
Conservation Biology, 35(2), 610-622.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7).
Sustainability Science, 14, 1717–1728.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(6).
Springer Nature: Cham, Switzerland.
In: Marselle, Stadler, Korn, Irvine and Bonn (Eds). Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change. Springer Nature.
In: Marselle, Stadler, Korn, Irvine and Bonn (Eds). Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change. Springer Nature.
In: Marselle, Stadler, Korn, Irvine and Bonn (Eds). Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change. Springer Nature.
Studies in Higher Education, 44(11), 1931-1944.
Semiotica, 218, 21-64.
Energy Research & Social Science, 19, 177-191.
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 46, 217-232.
Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Vol. 2015.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12, 106-130
Ecopsychology, 6(3), 134-147.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 10, 5603-5628
Swedish Design Research Journal, 1, 29-38.
Applied Acoustics, 74(2), 224-231.
Security Journal, 25 (2), 116-133.
Journal of Applied Fire Science, 15(4), 253-276.