Lindsay McCunn

Academic career

From 2015 to 2017, McCunn was an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington Tacoma. In 2017, she joined Vancouver Island University, where she is a professor of psychology and director of the Environmental Psychology Research Lab. She also holds an adjunct associate professor appointment in the department of psychology at the University of Victoria.

McCunn teaches courses in research methods, environmental psychology, neuropsychology, the history of psychology, and introductory psychology. She supervises undergraduate and graduate theses, and reviews science proposals for national and international funding agencies, such as the Canadian Space Agency, NASA, and Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council. McCunn often presents research and gives invited addresses at multidisciplinary conferences.

Her published research has focused on the intersection of psychology and sustainability, health care, engineering, facilities management, and urban design in various physical environments including offices, schools, libraries, prisons, and hospitals. Her empirical work involves formal collaboration with school districts, health authorities, municipalities, and architecture firms.

McCunn is the Principal of McCunn & Associates Consulting—a firm dedicated to applying research-based environmental psychological practices to real-world challenges in planning, sustainability, healthcare, and urban design.

Professional Service

After serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Environmental Psychology from 2019 to 2021, McCunn was appointed co-editor-in-chief of the journal in 2021. She is also on the editorial board for the journal Environmental Psychology Research. From 2019 to 2023, she was an associate editor for the journal Cities & Health—during that time, she co-guest edited two special issues for the journal. She is a past chair of the Environmental Psychology Section of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), and of the Environmental Design Research Association. While Chair of the environmental psychology section of the CPA, she led the preparation of a position paper titled “Addressing Climate Change in Canada: The Importance of Psychological Science” that won the CPA's John C. Service award in 2020. The position paper was the source of her guest editorship of the CPA's public-facing magazine Psynopsis for a special issue titled “Psychology and Climate Change” in 2021. McCunn serves on the Canadian National Panel for the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), and is one of two Canadian delegates to its General Assembly. She is also a member of the IUPsyS working group on crisis response.