Sam is an Associate Professor supported by a Yorkshire Cancer Research University Academic Fellowship. He is broadly interested in cancer prevention and control. Specific interests include the psychological factors affecting chemoprevention use, cancer in high risk populations, lifestyle behaviour change, novel clinical trial designs, and cancer screening uptake. Sam's academic background is in behavioural science and health psychology, and he uses a range of quantitative and qualitative methods within his research.

Sam's PhD thesis investigated the potential of 'gist-based' information to promote colorectal cancer screening uptake among low literacy groups. This work was was funded by a Medical Research Council studentship, and an NIHR programme grant (PI: Rosalind Raine). Sam's PhD was supervised by Professor Jane Wardle and Dr Christian von Wagner at the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, University College London. After his doctoral studies, Sam was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago. Under the supervision of Professor Michael Wolf, he gained expertise in medication adherence, patient activation and health literacy. In 2014 he was awarded a Cancer Research UK Fellowship to investigate decision-making in the context of breast cancer chemoprevention.