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 Andrew Phillips is an expert in structural biomechanics, specializing in combining musculoskeletal and finite element modelling. His research optimizes strategies for structural engineering and skeletal biomechanics, while also exploring bioinspired structures based on environmental factors. With a background in Civil Engineering and a PhD in Orthopaedic Engineering, Dr Phillips has held key positions at the Edinburgh Orthopaedic Engineering Centre and Imperial College London and coordinates the MEng Civil Engineering program. Additionally, he organizes the Parametric Engineering Course and is involved in the Centre for Blast Injury Studies.

Dr Anne Chappell has been in the Brunel University Department of Education since 2004, and since joining Anne has undertaken the role of programme leader on both undergraduate and PGCE courses leading to Qualified Teacher Status, Department Director of Teaching and Learning and Deputy Head of Department. Anne’s PhD critically explored teachers’ professional learning and her research interests are in auto/biography, education, policy, and the experiences of children, young people and professionals, including those from military families.

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 Charlotte Herriott is a member of the Centre for Military Women’s Research as well as Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Policing and Course Leader for MA Criminology at Anglia Ruskin University. Charlotte’s research centres around sexual violence, both in the civilian and military context, particularly looking at criminal justice responses. Her most recent work focuses on victim-survivor experiences and impact of sexual violence in the UK Armed Forces, as well as their experience and perception of the service justice response.

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.