Professor Tim O'Brien
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Tim is a Professor [part-time] in the Department of Educational Psychology, Inclusive and Special Education.
He is also:
The Honorary Professor in Psychology and Human Development at UCL Institute of Education, UK.
A Chartered Psychologist [British Psychological Society]
A Fellow of The Royal Society of Medicine [UK]
A member of The American Psychological Association.
Chair of the Advisory Board for the UCL Centre for Inclusive Education
A peer reviewer for The International Journal of Wellbeing
Tim's works in Applied Psychology in a range of contexts:
He has worked in English Premier League Football, with three clubs, for over twenty years. This has mostly been at Arsenal Football Club as psychologist for the men's team (appointed by Arsene Wenger) and Head of Psychology and Wellbeing for the club (appointed by Mikel Arteta). His work with Arsenal is described here in an article about how they won The Premier League in 2026.
https://www.sportingnews.com/…
He has researched and published in the field of wellbeing and wrote and co-led the Teacher Wellbeing programme for The Chartered College of Teaching [working with teachers in deprived areas of the UK.]
He is a member of the UK Government Expert Advisory Group on Teacher and Leader Wellbeing.
He works with executive teams in global businesses, mostly on Culture Transformation and Building Higher Performing Teams.
He has acknowledged expertise (including publications) in the application of Grounded Theory as an analytic methodology .
He has also worked with executive teams across the UK National Health Service.
He has given keynote presentations in his specialist areas in many countries.
Academic Awards
Tim was the first person in the UK to be awarded The Fulton Fellowship.
He was awarded The Hines Page Scholarship (UK/USA)
Publications
Tim has authored, co-authored, edited and contributed to many books..
His first book was published in 1998.
His most recently published book is Inner Story: Understand your mind. Change your world.
Peer-reviewed articles in the fields related to his teaching at MIC include:
- O'Brien, T. and Guiney, D. (2019) Staff Wellbeing in Higher Education: a research study.
- O'Brien, T. and Roberts, A. (2019) A domains-based approach to Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs.
- O'Brien, T. (2020) Has inclusion become a barrier to inclusion?
O'Brien, T. and Guiney, D. (2021) Wellbeing: how we make sense of it and what this means for teachers.
Two 2026 publications are currently in press.
His work has been published in Spanish and Mandarin.
