Joey Stephens

Joey graduated in Applied Social Sciences with a focus on Crime and Criminal Justice at the University of York before studying for their MSc in Psychology at the University of Essex. They have experience in a range of public sector roles, from Quality Improvement Facilitator for an NHS services provider, to providing advice and guidance to users of social care services. They also have experience writing successful funding applications and administrating a Lottery-funded project as an LGBT Awareness Advisor to deliver training in schools across Essex. They co-organised Colchester's first ever Pride event in 2017 and completed Stonewall’s competitive leadership programme in 2023.

Joey’s experience in Higher Education includes working as a Faculty Operations Manager at the University of Essex where they oversaw a variety of projects, and they have just completed their PhD thesis exploring the effect of avatar and tool appearance on ownership and agency during virtual tasks.