Research Community

Dr Amber McKenzie is situated in KCMHR, King’s College London. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate funded by the Wellcome Trust exploring the experiences of minorities in the UK Armed Forces and other male-dominated workplaces.

Amber’s PhD work explored adjustment disorder in the UK Armed Forces population. Using a mixed-methods approach, Amber provided a profile of what an adjustment disorder looks like for Armed Forces personnel and Veterans, identifying potential factors associated, and outlining clinical and occupational outcomes.

Amber also teaches on the Psychology BSc programme and contributes to the development of undergraduate modules. Her research interests are mostly in occupational mental health, mental health interventions, mental health implications for ethnic minorities and ethnic minorities experiences in the military.

Dr Beverly Bergman trained in medicine at the University of Birmingham. She worked as an Army doctor, initially in general practice before transferring into public health in 1996. She was appointed Senior Lecturer in Preventive Medicine at the Royal Army Medical College in 1997, and was Honorary Senior Lecturer in Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Birmingham 2002-2009. Appointed Army Parkes Professor of Preventive Medicine in 2007, she was a member of the Army Medical Services Research Ethics Committee, the Surgeon General’s Research Strategy Group and the Army Scientific Advisory Committee. She worked in the Army’s health policy unit at the Ministry of Defence before moving to Scotland where she was seconded to the Scottish Government as Military Medical Liaison Officer. Since retiring from the Army in 2012, she has been at the Institute of Health & Wellbeing of the University of Glasgow where, after completing a PhD study on the long-term health of military veterans in Scotland in 2016, she was an Honorary Senior Research Fellow before being appointed Honorary Clinical Associate Professor in 2021. She was appointed OBE for Services to Veterans in Scotland in the New Year Honours list 2021.

Dr Chinedu Udeh-Momoh is a Translational Neuroscientist whose work focuses on developing contextual dementia prevention strategies for individuals such as female Veterans, who are at the highest risk for developing dementia, also across diverse populations. Her research adopts a translational approach to elucidate dementia prevention bio-mechanistic pathways and strategies, by integrating human clinical studies with experimental animal models. Furthermore, she leads global initiatives to address gender and racial disparities in medical research and academia. Overall, her work is at the forefront of translational neuroscience and dementia epidemiology, bringing together fundamental neuroscience discoveries to improve human health and wellbeing.

Chris is an Associate Professor in History at the University of South Wales. His recent research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), has explored the multifaceted role of imperialism across the cycle of nuclear development in Britain, from uranium extraction in the Congo and South Africa to nuclear weapons tests in Australia and the Pacific. Chris is Principal Investigator for the Office for Veterans’ Affairs project: ‘An Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans’.

Chris is a social worker lecturer and Army Veteran, whose research interests span her social work and Veteran identity. She is a member of the Northern Hub for Veterans and Military Families Research and has completed a PhD study, which explores the life stories of women Veterans who served between the 1940s to 2000s. Her military-focused research interests are military women, Veterans, LGBT+ and social work research linked to developing simulation pedagogies for pre and post-qualifying social workers.

Dr Craig White is a researcher from the University of Loughborough, working in partnership with Dr Jamie Barker on the Veterans' Resilience Programme. This programme aims to optimise Veterans' resilience and mental health and well-being and strengthen peer support networks for those Veterans that suffer from mental health and well-being issues. Their work uses a holistic approach to enhancing resilience, mental health, and well-being in Veterans by promoting a more active and healthier lifestyle and enhanced feelings of a positive social identity for those who participate. Dr Barker and Dr White are also currently producing an academic paper and policy documentation for the Office of Veterans’ Affairs. This will emphasise the potential impact of non-clinical interventions on Veterans suffering from mental health and well-being issues. Additionally, they are applying for additional funds to expand the Veterans' Resilience Programme nationwide.'

Dr Dan Dyball is a researcher on the ADVANCE study, a study investigating the long-term health impact of sustaining a physical combat injury in Afghanistan. Dr Dyball is specifically interested in mental health, and how mental health affects physical health.

Dr Dan Leightley is a Lecturer in Digital Health Sciences at the School of Life Course & Population Sciences at King’s College London. Dan’s research is focused on the interface between physical and mental health using digital technology, secondary data and AI. Dan also has an interest in military mental health, cyber security and data governance. He holds grants from the Forces in Mind Trust, National Institute of Health Research, UK Medical Research Council and UK Cabinet Office.

Dean Whybrow’s research area is organizational health and well-being. He is a subject matter expert in well-being and occupational mental health care. This includes developing resources to cope with job demands such as high workload, ethical dilemmas, or exposure to potentially traumatic events. He is focused on the interplay between job demands and job resources, and strategies for promoting employee resilience. On the flip side are employee burnout, disengagement, and workforce attrition. These factors are especially relevant to healthcare workforces where staff recruitment, education, and retention can impact service delivery. His emphasis is promoting recovery and well-being, understanding the decision to leave a job, the experience of career change and identifying opportunities to promote employee engagement and retention. 

Dr Elliott Atkinson is a neuromuscular physiologist whose interests primarily lie in the underpinning neural mechanisms of human motor function. His focus is to investigate how the human neural system adapts to resistance training and pathophysiological conditions, and the influence of sex and hormonal status. He aims to combine these focuses to understand better the neural mechanisms and impact of hormonal status in both healthy and clinical groups, and how resistance training might be better tailored to provide improved quality of life outcomes. 

Dr Emma Senior is an Assistant Professor in Nursing and Specialist Community Public Health Nursing, alongside being a Veteran spouse. As a member of the Northern Hub for Veterans & Military Families' Research, Dr Emma Senior completed her PhD exploring the experiences of military spouses who have lived alongside their UK serving partner with a mental health issue. Her military focused research interests seek to explore the qualitative experiences of military spouses/relationships, mental health, and well-being to inform mechanisms for support and CPD opportunities within health and social care. 

Dr Georgina Normile is a Senior Lecturer in Primary Education and the Programme Leader for the degree in Education Primary and Early Years at Bath Spa University. Her research focuses on the wellbeing of pre-school children experiencing military-related parental separation. Her 2019 PhD was entitled 'A case study exploring the impact of parental deployment on the wellbeing of British Army children in the pre-school year.' Since this time, her research has extended to include the experiences of pre-school children from all three branches of the UK Armed Forces. Georgina is passionate about representing a range of perspectives within her research, including those of educational practitioners and young children themselves.