Research Community

Professor Paul Farrand is Professor of Evidence Based Psychological Practice and Research, and Director of the Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (LICBT) portfolio within Clinical Education, Development and Research (CEDAR), Psychology University of Exeter. He holds several Expert Advisor positions and at an international level acts as a Scientific Advisor regarding worldwide developments in Low-Intensity CBT. He is an internationally renowned expert in LICBT (CBT self-help) and has substantial expertise CBT self-help interventions, especially in a written and mobile phone app format and adapting the interventions for specific groups, such as Armed Forces Veterans, Muslims, Informal Carers and several physical health populations. Paul is currently working on an OVA-funded research project adapting an AI-driven mobile phone app (Iona) to ensure acceptability and effectiveness for ex-servicewomen. 

Professor Sir Simon Wessely FRS is a Psychiatrist and Epidemiologist. He started his psychiatry training at the Maudsley in 1984, and has been at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neurosciences, King’s College London, ever since. He established the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) in 1996 and remains the Co-director alongside Professor Nicola Fear. His main areas of research have been in unexplained symptoms/syndromes, military health, epidemiology, clinical trials and how populations and people react to adversity.

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.

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.