Dr David Hayes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, UL. He holds a B.A. International in Psychology (2012), Masters in Psychological Science (2014), and PhD (2023) from the School of Psychology, University College Dublin, and a Certificate of Continuining Professional Development in University Teaching & Learning (2024) from UCD. Prior to his current position, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the UCD School of Psychology, and has previously worked as a lecturer in the School of Psychology and School of Education in UCD and in the Department of Technology and Psychology in the Dun Laoghaire Institute for Art, Design, and Technology.    

As a cognitive and media psychologist, David's research broadly examines cognition and emotion in the context of media entertainment (video games in particular), with an emphasis on investigating how entertainment experiences are shaped by individual, social, cultural, and technological factors. He is also highly interested in the longer-term effects of video gameplay and in exploring how video game entertainment research and principles from gaming can be applied to address key societal issues, such as pollution and education.