Research Community

The King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) is the leading civilian UK centre of excellence for military health research providing much-needed evidence on the health and well-being of Serving and ex-Serving personnel and their families. KCMHR’s research relates to conflict and health, occupational psychiatry, personnel issues and social policy. Their research is conducted in four key areas, Serving personnel, ex-Serving personnel, military families (including those of ex-Serving personnel) and interventions.

Laura Grover is a Postdoctoral Research Associate who recently completed a mixed-methods PhD as part of the ADVANCE study at King’s College London. Her doctoral research focused on social support within the ADVANCE cohort - a prospective study examining the long-term psychosocial outcomes of military personnel who sustained combat injuries during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Her work explored differences in social support between injured and uninjured personnel and investigated how social support is associated with mental health and wellbeing. In her current role, Laura contributes to several projects on veteran health, with a particular emphasis on physical health and cognitive decline. She is committed to advancing research that improves understanding of veterans’ long-term health needs and informs evidence-based support.”

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. 

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.

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 Gerri Matthews-Smith is a Professor within the Edinburgh Napier Business School and is the founder and Director of the Centre for Military Research, Education and Public Engagement, also at Edinburgh Napier university. Gerri is also the lead for the new Scottish Armed Forces Evidence and Research (SAFE&R) Hub and the University Research Lead for Military Research. Gerri’s research work rests within three key disciplines: human and organisational development, management, and wellbeing.

Professor Matt Kiernan is the Director of The Northern Hub for Veterans and Military Families' Research at Northumbria University. Prior to this, he was the Head of Mental Health Nursing in the Royal Navy, the Specialist Nurse Advisor for Mental Health (Royal Navy) and the Defence Specialist Nurse Advisor (Mental Health). In his current role, he leads a range of research projects involving Veterans, Service personnel and their families, exploring health and social care, public health, psychology, social policy, human geography and nursing.

Professor Nicola Fear holds a Chair in Epidemiology at the Academic Department of Military Mental Health and is Director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) at King’s College London and one of the Directors of the Centre for Evidence for the Armed Forces Community. Nicola has worked in the field of occupational health throughout her career, including within the UK Ministry of Defence as their Consultant Epidemiologist. She trained in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford, from where she obtained her doctorate. Professor Fear is one of the Principal Investigators on the KCMHR military cohort study and leads several studies looking at the impact of military service on families. 

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. 

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

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.