**About the Editor**

## **Parastou Donyai**

Prof. Parastou Donyai is Professor of Social and Cognitive Pharmacy in the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Reading. She is a qualified pharmacist and registrant of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a graduate member of the British Psychological Society and an associate member of the College of Mental Health Pharmacy. She studied pharmacy at King's College London (1990-1993), and after her pre-registration training in hospital returned to King's to complete a PhD in pharmacy (1994-1998). Inspired by her experiences as a pharmacist, she began studying people within healthcare settings. She completed a postgraduate diploma in psychological research methods in 2007 and obtained a second full degree in psychology in 2014. She researches the practical and behavioural aspects of medicines use, from the time of their prescribing to their disposal and potential for reuse, including patient and practitioner education and training. She has explored medication usage in a range of conditions including dementia, psychosis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and following myocardial infarction and breast cancer. Her research on Continuing Professional Development provided the basis for revalidating pharmacy professionals in Great Britain and she has also developed training for pre-registration pharmacists. She is a co-director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Health Humanities at the University of Reading, promoting projects on health and illness that combine the traditional and social sciences with the humanities. Her research on reducing medicines wastage has created in-depth understandings of the psychology of drug holidays, medication use reviews and beliefs about medication reuse, facilitating the interdisciplinary ReMINDS (Reuse of Medicines though Informatics, Networks and Digital Sensors) collaboration.
