Dr Jane Cocks (She/Her)
Visiting Research Fellow

Organisation unit

College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences School of Psychology

Location

Adelaide University
Profile of Dr Jane Cocks
Working across two roles at Novita; half clinical practice, half leading a digital innovation project in allied health. Not currently taking on new student supervision.
My week is split between client‑facing clinical work and project commitments. Email is the best way to reach me, and I'll respond as clinical and project scheduling allows.

About me

I'm a psychologist, and at the heart of my work is a simple belief: everyone deserves support that truly sees them. My job is to help people understand themselves, work through what's hard, and build lives that feel meaningful, and to make sure the care they receive is warm, human and genuinely useful.

I split my week between clinical practice and leading digital innovation in allied health, and I'm at my best where those two worlds meet. At Novita I work with children, young people and adults living with disability, providing psychological therapy and assessment as part of a multidisciplinary team. Alongside this, as Psychology and Digital Project Lead, I guide how thoughtful, well‑chosen technology (including tools that ease the paperwork behind the scenes), is brought into everyday practice, so the focus can stay where it belongs: on the person, not the admin.

My career story has seen me work in many meaningful human contexts including trauma research, health promotion, suicide prevention, and a PhD that fused psychology with game design. That mix taught me to ask one question of any new tool or idea: does this genuinely help people flourish? It's still the question I lead with.

  • Best Research Application: BreathSync, a biofeedback VR educational game. XR Brain Jam, Games for Change Festival (2021)
  • Selected as one of a small global cohort of research psychology game designers for the XR Brain Jam, Games for Change, New York (2018 & 2021)
  • National Resilient Australia Award finalist: Positive Mental Health in Young Adult Fire and Emergency Service Personnel (2021)
  • Top 30 Women in Games, MCV Pacific, Australia (2017)
  • Game Changers: Campaigner finalist, MCV Pacific (2017); microgame Detachment finalist, Freeplay Festival, Melbourne (2018)
  • Vice‑Chancellor's PhD Scholarship, University of the Sunshine Coast (2014)
  • International travel scholarships to present at the Game Developers Conference, San Francisco (2019) and the Persuasive Gaming in Context Conference, Rotterdam (2016)

I'm a registered psychologist working across clinical practice and digital innovation. Currently, I work clinically as a Psychologist and Digital Project Lead at Novita, dividing my time equally between direct clinical work, alongside leading a program to embed digital technologies in clinical practice.

Previously, I was a Senior Research Officer at the University of Adelaide on a national project examining mental health and wellbeing in young emergency‑services volunteers, and held research roles spanning traumatic stress, population health, health economics and suicide prevention at the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia, and PsychMed. My doctoral research developed a framework for designing games that support positive health behaviour change, a multidisciplinary blend of psychology theory and game design practice.

Teaching has been a valued thread through my career, though it isn't my current focus. I've tutored into the online Bachelor of Psychology (Psychology Applications) and taught into the Graduate Diploma of Psychology, delivering live webinars and tutorials, moderating discussion, marking, and mentoring students through their learning. I bring the same practical, real‑world lens to teaching that I bring to clinical work, connecting theory to the situations students will actually meet in practice.

(Not currently taking on new teaching loads or student supervision.)

  • Doctor of Philosophy
  • Honours Degree of Bachelor of Health Sciences

Member, Australian Psychological Society (APS), 2020-present
Member, Australian Association of Psychologists (AAPi), 2022-present
Member, Astronomical Society of South Australia (ASSA), 2022-present

A fun fact about me

I'm an award-winning game designer. My PhD brought psychology and game design together, and a VR breathing game I helped create won "Best Research Application" at a New York games festival.

My hobbies

I love connecting with the natural world, especially at night. I believe stargazing can expand our perspective, connect us with inherent mindfulness skills, and enhance wellbeing. I also take photos of space, and have won awards in this space ✨

My favourite books

I'm drawn to books that sit where psychology, philosophy, and a good story overlap; anything that makes me see people, or the world, a little differently.

Last updated on 18/07/2026 by Jane Cocks