Professor Antonia Lyons is the Hugh Green Foundation Chair in Addiction Research in the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland, within the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences. She holds a PhD in Psychology from Massey University, completed in 1996, along with a BA(Hons) from the same institution. Her academic career includes positions as Lecturer in Health Psychology at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2002, followed by roles at Massey University from 2003 to 2018, progressing to Professor of Health Psychology. She subsequently served as Professor at Victoria University of Wellington from 2018 to 2022 before joining the University of Auckland.
Professor Lyons is a critical health psychologist whose research examines the social and cultural contexts of health-related behaviours, with a particular focus on alcohol consumption, drinking cultures, addiction, identities, power dynamics, and inequities across social groups. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and five books, including co-authoring Health Psychology: A Critical Introduction and co-editing the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Issues in Health and Illness in 2021 with Kerry Chamberlain. She also co-edits the Routledge book series Critical Approaches to Health and co-edited Youth Drinking Cultures in a Digital World in 2017. Her editorial contributions include serving as co-editor for Qualitative Research in Psychology, Associate Editor for Psychology and Health, and as a member of the editorial board for Addiction: Research and Theory. In addition to her research and teaching, she directs the Centre for Addiction Research and has held leadership roles such as Head of School.