Research Community

Professor Cotterill is the lead for the Centre for Human Performance Research, His specific area of expertise is the psychology of human performance, and he is both an active practitioner psychologist and researcher in this field. He is experienced as a practitioner psychologist working with a range of military populations focused on psychological performance, mental health and wellbeing. In addition, Prof Cotterill's research seek to better understand factors that impact upon service personnel role performance. Including sleep, resilience, mental health and wellbeing, addiction, stress and coping and performance under pressure. He is also interested in transitions within the military and out of the military into civilian life.

Professor Karatzias, is a Professor of Mental Health at Edinburgh Napier University, UK and a Clinical & Health Psychologist at the Rivers Centre for Traumatic Stress, Edinburgh, UK. He is the Director of Research at Edinburgh Napier University. He is a former Chair of the British Psychological Society Scotland Working Party for Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse (BPSSS) and is a current member of the Committee of the British Psychological Society (BPS) Crisis, Disaster & Trauma Section and UK Psychological Trauma Society (UKPTS). He has spent his entire clinical and academic career working in the field of psychological trauma. In collaboration with national and international research partners he has developed a special interest in the effects and treatment of psychological trauma on physical and mental health; on prison populations; and on people with learning disabilities. He has published widely in these areas.

Professor Vince Connelly is Professor of Psychology at the Oxford Brookes University Defence and Security Centre and Director of Teaching and Learning for the Psychology programmes. His areas of research expertise include Reserve Forces, Military Families, and Veterans. Vince was a founder member of the UK Future Reserves Research Programme in 2014 and has contributed to, and led, numerous projects examining the Reserve Forces experience including understanding recruitment and retention issues, the need for family support, improving productivity and how to design and deploy Reserve Forces for warfighting.  Vince has also published many research studies in the field of educational psychology examining the development of literacy skills.

As a social scientist within Robert Gordon University, Professor Zoe Morrison worked to further the application of business and management studies to policy driven change programmes. Her work aimed to inform leadership and human resource management theory through understanding individual experiences of change, including changing expectations of work, careers and employment, and adoption and implementation of technological innovation. Her interpretivist research agenda was curiosity inspired and theoretically driven, drawing on the sociology of work and organisations, and military and family sociologies. Zoe worked in three areas: health, defence and carbon emissions mitigation, often referred to as decarbonisation. Zoe has now moved role to be the Lead Specialist in Culture and Experience at NHS Grampian. 

Professor Zubair Ahmed is a Professor of Neuroscience and Lead for the Neuroscience and Ophthalmology Section at the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham. His current focus for research is aligned with University identified priority areas of Immunology, Infection and Inflammation related to trauma and in particular Neurotrauma affecting the eye, brain and spinal cord. Some of his research projects are aimed at identifying the immune/inflammatory, metabolic and repair systems that determine the outcome of neurotrauma. He has an independent programme of research based on understanding the molecular mechanisms controlling repair and regeneration in the central nervous system. 

RAND Europe is a not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to improve policy and decision-making through objective research. It combines the impartiality and academic rigour of a university with the client-oriented delivery approach of a consultancy. RAND Europe’s Defence and Security research group conducts research on a range of subjects, including those relating to Defence workforces and the wider Armed Forces Community. Examples of recent work undertaken by the Defence and Security group in this area include research examining the impact of the Armed Forces Covenant and multiple studies examining areas of potential disadvantage (e.g., employment, financial stability and social care) faced by members of the Armed Forces Community.

Rebecca Steel is the Director of the College for Military Veterans and Emergency Services based at the University of Central Lancashire, she has led the programme of transition and engagement for the armed forces community for the past three years. Rebecca is a strong advocate for education as a pathway to transition.

In addition, Rebecca is from a military family with three service children of her own. Rebecca’s research portfolio involves a number of studies and focusses on the impact of military mobility/transition on education and the future trajectories of families engaged with military service. Rebecca’s research employs participatory and mixed methodologies to explore themes around education, learning, and employment to ensure a level playing field and sense of agency for those hidden voices of the military community who are seldom heard.

Rebecca is currently leading research on identifying the needs of service young people, veterans, and spouses in Further and Higher Education.

Rebecca is a member of the Service Children’s Progression (SCiP) Alliance Management Group, chairs the North West’s SCiP Hub, a founder member of Lancashire Armed Forces Covenant Hub and is involved in several active research programmes locally, nationally and internationally

Dr Samantha Brooks is a researcher at the King’s Centre for Military Health Research at King’s College London. She has a PhD in Social Psychology, with a thesis focusing on how accountability is negotiated in talk about body image and disordered eating. She is experienced in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches as well as evidence synthesis and literature reviews. Her previous research has spanned topics such as non-deployment stressors; stigma and help-seeking in the Armed Forces; secondary traumatic stress in veterans’ significant others; the effectiveness of a mobile app to support veterans’ mental health; the impacts of trauma; the development of trauma-informed interventions; and mental health in the workplace. She currently works on the AFTER study, exploring the psychosocial and sexual experiences of veterans and their partners affected by genital injuries sustained in combat. 

Sarah Rabin is a PhD student within King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) looking at the health and well-being of UK LGBT+ Serving and ex-Serving military personnel. Before she started her PhD, she was a Research Assistant within KCMHR and held a dual role working with the NHS Check project and the Academic Department of Military Mental Health. Sarah received her Master's from King's College London in War and Psychiatry, where her dissertation focused on the final withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and its impact on UK Serving and ex-Serving military personnel. She also holds experience researching suicide prevention within US Veteran communities.

The Impact Centre is a collaboration between the SCiP Alliance and the King's Centre for Military Health Research. The Impact Centre's role is to enhance the evidencing and evaluation practices of those working to support Service children. This involves providing evaluation training, consultancy, and evidence-into-practice briefings to better equip the Service children supporting sector. The Impact Centre collaborates with practitioners (education, third sector, social workers, etc), researchers, policy makers and funders to best understand what works for supporting Service children. 

Siobhan is a fully funded PhD candidate at the Veterans and Families Institute for Military Social Research, at Anglia Ruskin University. Her research explores the experiences of military mobility for young people from British Army and RAF families, both overseas and within England, drawing on primary data that centres youth voice. Alongside her doctoral work, Siobhan works for SSAFA Community Health, supporting British Forces Overseas as a visiting Children and Young People’s Mental Health Community Nursing Practitioner and ADOS 2 Assessor. From her ongoing PhD research, she has developed a booklet sharing young people’s advice on navigating mobility, which is widely used to support families across the UK and overseas. Siobhan holds an undergraduate degree in Applied Social Science and Social Policy, a master’s degree in Psychology, and a master’s degree in Mental Health Nursing. Her personal, academic and professional work is grounded in supporting the wellbeing of the Armed Forces community.

The work of the Stress, Trauma, and Related Conditions (STARC) Research Centre focuses on the psychological well-being and mental health of those who have experienced stress, adversity, and trauma. The team focus on exploring and understanding predictors, correlates, and impacts of a range of psychological disorders including, but not limited to, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, and Dissociation and work with a range of different populations (healthcare workers, emergency services, Armed Forces, children and adolescents, as well as the general adult population). Additionally, recent efforts have focused on exploring the concept of post adversity psychological resilience.