Research Community

Laura Waddams is currently a second year Doctorate in Clinical Psychology student at the University of Essex. Laura has research interests in male and Veteran mental health, anxiety disorders, and the connection between mental health and physical health. Laura’s prior research has included a systematic review on the experience of depression in older men, and a narrative analysis on recovery memoirs. Laura is currently working on her thesis project, which is a qualitative exploration of body modification practices in UK male military Veterans who have an injury, disability, illness, and/or mental health condition.

Linda Slapakova is a Research Leader at RAND Europe and a PhD researcher at the King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR). She leads RAND's portfolio of work on the Defence workforce and Armed Forces Community. Her work cuts across personnel policy (particularly understanding future personnel policy challenges, incentivisation, career and talent management) and understanding the experiences and support needs of Veterans and military families. Her PhD research is focusing on intimate partner violence and domestic abuse among UK military personnel and Veterans. 

Lisa Campbell is a Counselling Psychologist in training, studying at Glasgow Caledonian University. Her research interests include trauma, PTSD, Complex PTSD, and psychological safety. Prior research based on Veteran populations includes a qualitative exploration of therapy experiences for PTSD and presenting symptoms and coping styles of Veterans who experienced trauma. Additionally, Lisa has conducted two systematic reviews synthesising qualitative literature on treatment seeking and treatment dropout for PTSD. She has presented her research at UK conferences. Her current project leads from her previous research which is a qualitative study to explore counselling psychologists' approach to treatment for CPTSD in UK Veterans.

Lisa is a Trainee Clinical Psychologist studying for her doctorate at the University of Southampton. Her thesis topic is about understanding LGBTQ+ veteran's experiences of mental health and help seeking.

Liza worked for NHS England as the lead on the Armed Forces Community social prescribing demonstrator. Being from both a military family and living in Plymouth she is looking forward to continuing her work being the Project Lead for the Female Veterans Transformation Programme.

Lucy is a part-time PhD student with Edinburgh Napier University whilst also serving as an officer in the Royal Air Force. She has a background in Human Resource Management having previously studied cross-cultural competence in British Service Personnel serving in multinational NATO units. Her current research focuses on the role of identity loss in career transition for veterans working with the prison services with the ultimate hope of improving the career transition process for all veterans.

Lucy's Doctoral Research is studying Military to Civilian Transition through the occupations of those in the process of leaving the UK Armed Forces. 

As an Occupational Therapist Lucy considers occupations, activities, as all the things people need and want to do each day. Participation and meaning of these occupations may inform roles, responsibilities, routines and contribute to identity. She is studying Service Leaver occupations through photo-elicitation over time.

Lyndsay graduated from the University of Nottingham with an integrated Master of Nursing Science in 2011 before working as a staff nurse in neurosurgery at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. She went on to complete an MSc in Public Health Practice at the University of Surrey (2013), qualifying as a Health Visitor and working within military communities, where she supported mothers with perinatal mental health challenges. These experiences informed her MSc dissertation and inspired her doctoral work. Lyndsay’s PhD employs a Longitudinal Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (LIPA) framework to examine the lived experiences of non-serving British Army mothers during the perinatal period, generating insights to advance understanding and guide future public health practice and research.

Philip Dent is the Director of the Service Children's Progression (SCiP) Alliance and has worked for two decades in education, as a teacher and leader of whole-school programmes for disadvantaged groups. He led a regional further and higher education partnership and as a Chief Executive of The Progression Trust, he conducted research, development and training on whole-person approaches to progression for children, young people and adults in the UK and Australia. Additionally, he was an adviser to the Office for Fair Access on national research policy and strategy. Philip also co-founded the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers, now an independent charity. He has a Masters in Research and is particularly interested in intrinsic personal factors impacting on progression through the life-course.

Professor Anthony Bull is Professor of Musculoskeletal Mechanics at Imperial College London and is a leading figure in the field of joint mechanics and their clinical applications. He is currently Director of Imperial’s Centre for Injury Studies (CIS) and co-leads the ADVANCE study with colleagues from MoD and King's College London. He has extensive research activity in orthopaedic implant and surgical design in many areas associated with lower limb and upper limb biomechanics and ageing. 

The primary focus of Professor Chérie Armour's research programme is on mental health in those who have experienced stress, adversity, and trauma. She focuses on a range of psychological disorders including, but not limited to, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety and Dissociation. Chérie is also focused on exploring the concept of post adversity psychological resilience. She works across child, adolescent, and adult populations and focuses on a range of trauma types including childhood maltreatment, interpersonal, sexual, and domestic violence, and occupational related traumas (experienced by healthcare workers, emergency services and Armed Forces). In addition, Chérie looks at the impact of secondary trauma in families.

Professor Dominic Murphy is a Clinical Psychologist and Head of Research at Combat Stress. Dominic gained his first degree, an MA in psychology from Glasgow University in 2003.  He then joined King’s College London as part of the team that established the King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR). Dominic is President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society (UKPTS) and Executive Board member of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS). He is also part of the Five Eyes Veterans Mental Health Consortium and works on NATO research task groups. Dominic has specialised clinically and academically within the field of PTSD and military mental health.