Dr Ioannis Angelakis received his PhD summa cum laude in Psychology at Panteion University (Athens, Greece). He has a range of clinical and research experience working with people with mental health problems, including obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and anxiety.
His research interests focus on examining the impact of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, and depression on suicidality and self-harm, understanding the effects of adverse childhood experiences on the development, maintenance and/or exacerbation of mental health conditions, and investigating and refining therapeutic approaches for obsessive-compulsive and related disorders and depression.
He is currently Associate Professor in Psychology and Coordinator of the Behaviour Therapy Service at the University of South Wales, where he teaches modules on research methods, clinical and health psychology.
Professor Jennifer Austin works with schools and families to develop applied behaviour analytic programmes for children with a range of behaviour problems, including antisocial behaviour and autism.
Her research focus is on behaviour analytic applications in schools, especially with regard to teacher education, intervention planning and evaluation for typically developing children with severe behavioural challenges, and behaviour analytic teaching strategies for university students.
Professor Austin directs the Masters in Behaviour Analysis and Therapy and is an associate editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavior Analysis in Practice and serves on the editorial board of the European Journal of Behaviour Analysis.
She is a past member of the executive boards for both the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis and the California Association for Behavior Analysis.
Dr Josie Bradley is an anatomist and reproductive biologist. Her broad research interest is in mechanisms of male and female infertility, however recent work has focussed on investigating how a high fat diet affects egg quality.
Dr Anne Marie Coll is a RGN with a clinical background in day surgery. Her PhD explored the field of day surgery further by examining the effect of day surgery on patients in three different geographical areas on their physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing.
Her doctoral work has taken her to national and international conferences. In 2000, Anne Marie was successful in obtaining a travelling fellowship from the pharmaceutical company Zeneca to investigate day surgery discharge policies in hospitals across Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra as well as an invitation to present her findings at the British Association of Day Surgery (BADS) congress in Edinburgh. She has also been a guest speaker at several hospital trusts and at the Welsh Acute Pain Interest Group.
Her interest in spirituality in nursing began in 2015 when she was approached by Professor Linda Ross to join the undergraduate teaching team in the teaching of spirituality. Since then, she has been involved in the promotion of spirituality and along with Professor Linda Ross, is currently supervising a KESS-funded PhD student who is looking at how spiritual care provided by nurses can be improved for both patients and carers in NHS Wales.
Dr Coll is particularly interested in the definition and peoples’ perceptions of spirituality, its multidimensional nature as well as the embedding of it within nursing practice.
Dr Shakiela Davies holds the position of Lecturer in Clinical Psychology and Mental Health at the University of South Wales, and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
She was awarded one of the few fully funded PhD Psychology studentships at Swansea University which was based in Cognitive Psychology/Neuroscience of language, and completed this in 2019.
Shakiela has experience as an Assistant Clinical Psychologist with expertise in CBT, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, Stress Control, Mindfulness and delivering NHS group interventions, as part of her NHS training. Shakiela has research interests which span across Clinical Psychology, Cognitive and Neuroscience of Language (e.g., Age of Acquisition and morphological processing); Research Methods, Mental Health and Online Grooming. She was asked to present her research at the Research, Engagement & Innovation Awards (REIS), Swansea 2016, which can be watched here.
Shakiela has published and disseminated her research nationally and internationally (Spain, Canada). She has recently co-authored and published a book which provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of current perspectives on mental illness with references to psychological disorders and their current evidence based psycho-therapeutic applications - Tyson, P. J., Davies, S. K., & Torn, A., (2019) Madness: History, Concepts and Controversies. Routledge: Taylor and Francis. She is currently in a supervisory team examining Coulrophobia (clown phobia).
Dr Gina Dolan is the Head of Research for the Faculty of Life Sciences and Education, and the Joint Operational Lead for the RCBC Wales Team at the University of South Wales.
Joyce Kenkre, Emeritus Professor of Primary Care, has wide ranging research interests and has published on the prevalence of heart failure, the cost of accidents in the elderly, evaluation of routine enquiry for domestic abuse, careers for nurses in research, fraud, care for young mothers and their children and analysis of large monitoring datasets for HomeStart. She has been a lead or been a co-applicant on over £30 million research and infrastructure grants, and has conducted and supported over 100 research projects including the effect of new drugs, epidemiological, point of care testing, analysis of big data and evaluation of service provision.
Professor Kenkre is at the forefront of developing evidence-based community health models of work internationally through her membership of the European Rural Isolated Practitioners Association (EURIPA), which is a representative network organisation founded by family doctors to address the health and wellbeing needs of rural communities and the professional needs of those serving them across Europe, and the rural working party of the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) which represents family doctors/general practitioners globally. Kenkre is a member of WONCA's steering committee for the special interest group on Family Violence, which has led to an international study on policies and care strategies on how to deal with violence in the family context, being run in 28 countries: 18 in Europe, three in the Middle East, five in Africa, and two in Asia. She co-edited a special edition of the Journal of Nursing highlighting the study’s importance.
Notably, Professor Kenkre authored sections of the World Health Organisation's The State of the World’s Nursing 2020 highlighting the crucial role of nurses and midwives in rural areas and the need for research to improve the evidence base for practice.
More locally, Professor Kenkre played an integral role in the development of the Clinical Research Collaboration for Wales (CRC Cymru) which was the initial major initiative to develop an all Wales infrastructure for research. She is a Director of MediWales, an organisation bringing together academia, clinicians and the medical device industry; and Associate Director of the Wales School of Primary Care Research, where she leads on chronic conditions and working with industry.
Dr Deborah Lancastle is a Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered and British Psychological Society (BPS) Chartered Health Psychologist with special interest in the psychosocial aspects of women’s reproductive health.
Deborah specialises in infertility, ovarian cancer screening, uterine fibroids, and heavy menstrual bleeding.
Her previous work has focused on infertility, uterine fibroids, and ovarian cancer screening, and has looked at issues such as managing menstruation in secondary school girls and has sought practice nurse views about women's help-seeking for menstrual problems.
An intervention for infertile women that Deborah developed during her PhD has been translated into several languages and tested and found to be effective in the USA and the Netherlands.
She is regularly invited to speak to professional audiences such as fertility nurses and embryologists, and has contributed to support websites for women experiencing uterine fibroids or the menopause. She is an invited collaborator with pharmaceutical company Gedeon Richter as an expert on psychosocial factors in gynaecological health
Deborah is also Director of Studies for a KESS PhD student who is working with Health & Her to develop and evaluate a Menopause Symptom Tracker.
Dr Sioned Owen specialises in biochemistry and pharmacology. Her research focuses on breast, prostate and lung cancers with a particular on the molecular changes which facilitate their metastatic spread.
Professor David Pontin is Professor of Community Health, University of South Wales.
His current research focuses on family resilience and the implications for health visiting practice; social prescribing and healthcare numeracy.
Recent clinical experience centres on supporting children and families in the community where children have life limiting, life threatening and long term conditions.
Professor Pontin and Professor Carolyn Wallace are successfully building the research environment for social prescribing in Wales, setting up the Wales School for Social Prescribing and working closely with the Wales Council for Voluntary Action ( WCVA) on the development of the Wales Social Prescribing Research Network (WSPRN).
Linda Ross is a Professor of Nursing (specialising in spirituality) at the University of South Wales and a Visiting Professor at Staffordshire University.
Her PhD in 1992 was the first to explore nurses’ perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care which she published as a book in 1997.
She has published extensively on the subject of spirituality, contributing to numerous texts such as the ‘Oxford Textbook of Spirituality in Healthcare’ (Cobb, Rumbold & Puchalski, 2012) and ‘Spiritual Assessment in Healthcare Practice (McSherry & Ross, 2010).
For the last 30 years she has led numerous research studies on spiritual care in both nursing practice and nurse education, as well as leading training workshops and seminars for healthcare staff internationally. She contributed to the Royal College of Nursing’s ‘Spirituality in nursing Care: a pocket guide’ and ‘Spirituality in nursing care on-line resource’, and to the spiritual care guidance which accompanies the Welsh Government’s Health and Care Standards (2015).
She is a founding member and Membership Secretary for the British Society for the Study of Spirituality and an Executive Editor for the Society’s affiliated journal ‘Journal for the Study of Spirituality’. She is also an Editor for the journal ‘Health and Social Care Chaplaincy’ and she sits on the Board of the Spirituality and Health Research Center at Azusa Pacific University School of Nursing, California.
She was a Partner for the Erasmus+ funded EPICC Project which sought to establish best practice in spiritual care nurse education across Europe That work continues through the EPICC Network; you can apply to join here.
She has been working with Health Education Improvement Wales to embed the EPICC Standard within pe-registration nurse/midwifery education across Wales.
Dr Melody Cranbourne-Rosser is a HCPC Registered Applied Psychologist who has worked within the realms of health and social care for a number of years.
Her research interests include: spirituality and mental health, spirituality and psychotherapeutic practice, the place of spirituality in health and social care, and the role of presence when working with trauma.
In addition to her lecturing role at USW (teaching on the Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and other postgraduate courses), she is an associate lecturer with the Alef Trust (where she is lead for the transpersonal psychotherapy and counselling module of the MSc in Transpersonal Psychology, Spirituality, and Consciousness Studies) and senior psychologist within the NHS.
She has been an active member of various professional bodies, including Chair and executive committee member of BACP Spirituality and founder and lead of BPS DCoP Spirituality Special Interest Group.
Professor Martin Steggall is the Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Student Experience and a Professor of Practice (Urology Nursing), at the University of South Wales.
His current research interests and activity centre on erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation, particularly around ‘culture’ as well as the psychological/relationship impact of these conditions.
Professor Steggall trained as an Adult Nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London between 1993 and 1996, and remained in clinical practice at what is now Barts Health NHS Trust as a specialist in Men’s Health (Erectile Dysfunction and Premature Ejaculation) until December 2014, when he was appointed Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences and Education at the University of South Wales. He completed a Master’s degree in Physiology in 2001 and a PhD in the clinical management of premature ejaculation in 2009. He has published widely in academic journals on the subject of Urology and Men’s Health, and edited and contributed to five textbooks in anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology.
Professor Steggall currently holds an honorary contract with Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board and remains clinically active, practicing in Urology (Men’s Health). He is also a Board Member of both Health and Care Research Wales and the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research (WISERD).
He has been involved in numerous research projects, ranging from MHRA surgical trials, clinical trials and drug trials, to studies specifically related to erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation and how these conditions impact the man and his partner, his relationships and his concept of ‘self’.
He has contributed to the new Standards for Education in Nursing, and is a member of various Boards linked with Health Education, for example the UK Health Education Advisory Committee, as well as research, for example Health and Care Research Wales, as the grant administrator for Research Capacity Building Collaboration (RCBC).
Dr Philip Tyson is an academic psychologist with over 20 years’ experience at four universities across the UK.
Dr Tyson has extensive community networks that underpin his research in mental health and well-being in community settings. These include the United Welsh Housing Association; Cheltenham Town football club (conducting evaluations of their MENTalk and GIRLTalk programmes); the Football League Trust; Swansea City FC; Clarity in Mind.
Much of his early research focused on cognitive function in schizophrenia, but his current focus is on a more diverse range of mental health topics, including; dual diagnosis, hoarding disorder, coulrophobia and the links between physical activity and mental health.
Dr Tyson has have published over 30 papers, and attracted close to £100k in funding for research, service evaluation and studentships. He is the author of Psychology in Social Context: Issues and Debates and the co-author of Madness: History, Concepts and Controversies.
Carolyn Wallace, Professor of Community Health and Care Services, has a specific interest in integration across health and social care. Her background as a nurse, NHS manager and currently as chair of Age Cymru Gwent has been key to understanding the context of both health and care community working environments.
Carolyn is currently seconded to PRIME Centre Wales where she leads the University of South Wales PRIME group and as of the 1st February is an Associate Director of PRIME Centre Wales. She leads on the work package ‘Care Closer to Communities’ within which sits the new Wales School for Social Prescribing Research.
In 2011, Carolyn became the first nurse to win a place on the Welsh Crucible, an award winning leadership programme for researchers in Wales.
In 2014 she developed the concept of family resilience for public health nurses working in Wales and leads the FRAIT (Family Resilience Assessment Instrument and Tool) team at USW.
In 2017, Carolyn founded the All Wales Social Prescribing Research Network (WSPRN), and in December 2018, with a £10k grant from Wales School for Social Care Research, she co-founded the Wales Social Prescribing Research Network (WSPRN) to build the evidence base for social prescribing in Wales. She co-chairs with Dr Sally Rees (WCVA). In April 2020 Carolyn led to team which won Health and Care Research Wales infrastructure funding to develop and direct the Wales School for Social Prescribing Research.
Professor Edgar Mark Williams is Professor of Cardiopulmonary Science for the Faculty of Life Sciences and Education.
His research has been hosted by all the of the Welsh NHS Health Trusts, with strong research links with Velindre Cancer Centre and Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board (CTMUHB).
He has partnered with many commercial medical device companies, notably Huntley Healthcare Ltd. He shares his research with university colleagues UK wide, such as Cardiff and Bristol.
He has partnered with Charities such as the Red Cross, Mind and Tenovus. He is a long standing member of the Faculty ethics committee and is a research consultant for CTMUHB. He supervises post-graduate students at MRes and PhD level.
His cardiovascular research interests cover peripheral arterial disease, leg ulcers, lower limb lymphoedema, chemotherapy-induced phlebitis and D-Dimer assessment in deep vein thrombosis.
His respiratory research interests cover the pathophysiology of breathing in respiratory disease (eg COPD and IPF), the links between speech generation and lung function, the role of breathing in limiting exercise and lung development in prematurely born children.
Research interests extend to craniofacial surgery, which includes the use of 3D printed implants in reconstruction, bone healing assessment and the treatment of dental abscesses.
Research in public health covers, research method design, the impact of social prescribing, and provision of healthcare advice.
Dr Juping Yu had extensive clinical experience in China before she moved to Britain in 2000. She completed her doctoral research at the University of Stirling, which examined social and cultural influences on the attitudes towards sexual behaviour held by British-born Chinese teenagers in Scotland.
Her current work centres around two main themes: compassionate patient care; health and wellbeing across the lifespan.
Professor Wilfred Mcsherry is Professorin the School of Health and Social Care at Staffordshire University.
He has an international profile as a researcher in the areas of dignity in care, spirituality and spiritual care, ageing and dementia, and has designed tools to aid researchers and practitioners to evaluate these concepts.
Professor Mcsherry has over 20 years' experience as a nurse within the NHS and teaching on programmes of nursing and allied health professions within higher education.
Professor Jackie Miles completed her RGN training at St Marys Hospital, Paddington and went on to specialise in general intensive care and cardiac nursing working in St Marys Paddington, the Hammersmith, High Wycombe General, University Hospital Wales and Nevill Hall Hospital.
Finding a lack of provision for patients recovering from myocardial infarction and heart surgery in the early 1990’s she developed, with the valuable on-going support from patients, carers and two local charities (the North Gwent Cardiac Rehabilitation and After Care charity and the Nevill Hall Coronary and Research Thrombosis Fund), the multidisciplinary North Gwent Cardiac Rehabilitation programme. The programme was accredited with the Royal Institute of Public Administration Kings Fund Award in 1992, and the Charter Mark in 1998. For her services to Cardiac Rehabilitation Jackie received an MBE in 2003.
Her PhD thesis , completed at USW, compared the effect of ‘A programme of cardiac rehabilitation versus standard care in elderly patients with heart failure’; the first randomised controlled in this subject area in the UK.
An abstract of the main results of the study presented to the British Cardiac Society Annual Scientific Conference (2003) was judged to be one of the six highest ranked abstracts (out of a total number of 210).
As a Nurse Consultant (2004 – 2017) she carried a clinical case load, was the lead for Cardiac Rehabilitation and Heart Failure Services across the HB, and undertook research, audit and evaluation of services, mentored students, and developed education.
Her commitment to improving the care of patients with heart failure through research is evident both in her work with the Re-Ablement in Chronic Heart Failure (REACH-HF) study group from 2008-2015 and Professor Linda Ross since the year 2000. The REACH-HF study resulted in the positive effect of a unique delivery of home based cardiac rehabilitation on quality of life; an initiative now imbedded in practice across the UK. Her work with Linda - initiated by the lack of spiritual care for patients with heart failure led to two published studies and a published review of current literature.
She was Lead Nurse for the South Wales Cardiac Network (2012-16) and received the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Chief Executive Award in 2016.
Leaving the Nurse Consultant post in April 2017 she was the Lead Nurse for Heart Failure and Cardiac Rehabilitation Research (2017-2020) with specific interest in advanced heart failure and spiritual care. She is now on the supervision team (with Professor Linda Ross) of two KESS PhD students; one investigating uptake and adherence with cardiac rehabilitation and the other exploring the contemporary practice of nurses in the delivery of spiritual care across Wales.
Professor Neera Saxena is a consultant in Pain Management and Anaesthetics at Cwm Taf University Health Board.
He is also the Clinical Lead for Inpatient Pain Management. He has led the development of a South Wales’ Network of Acute Pain teams (SwNAP) to raise the standards of inpatient pain management and is currently a council member of the Welsh Pain Society and SwNAP.
He is actively involved in research and has published his work extensively. He was awarded the NISCHR Clinical Research Fellowship in 2014. His main research interests are in understanding the brain mechanisms of pain perception and improving clinical outcomes of various pain therapies.
Professor Linda Speck is a Consultant Clinical Health Psychologist, Head of Health Psychology Services and Manager of Cardiac Rehabilitation Services (East), ABM University Health Board, South Wales. She is developing the rapidly growing Health Psychology Service for the health board.
She has a particular research and clinical interest in the role that partners play in chronic disease management.
Professor Tayyeb Tahir has expertise in the field of General Adult Psychiatry, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and Old Age Psychiatry.
He has extensive experience in managing a whole spectrum of psychiatric disorders such as Depression, Generalised anxiety, Panic disorder, Bipolar affective disorder and Schizophrenia.
He is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Professor Lance Workman is visiting Professor in Psychology. His research and teaching interests include evolutionary and biological psychology. He is also a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society
His research into the lateralized processing of information has allowed me to explore evolutionary continuity between ourselves and other species and has involved collaboration with researchers at other UK Universities (Royal Holloway, Sussex and Swansea) and in Australia (University of New England, NSW). Such research involves lateralization of emotional responses (humans and other species) and of language (humans).
Title: Developing the health workforce in genomics: a longitudinal, cross-Wales, multicentre, interdisciplinary case study.
Director of study: Dr Emma Tonkin, Genomics Policy Research Unit
Supervisors: Dr Deborah Lancastle; Dr Mark Davies
This ESF-funded KESS PhD aims to understand the range of educational requirements (content and pedagogy) of those working in primary, secondary and tertiary health services, and will answer the following question: What are the most effective educational interventions that can be used to up-skill the health workforce in genomics?
This project will provide a better understanding of how genomics education can become embedded into practice.
As a result of this study we hope to offer a model that other countries internationally could use as they take forward their own genomic healthcare agendas, positioning Wales as a global leader in this area.
Title: Evaluation of the online menopause support provision from Health and Her and on the effects of symptom monitoring during the menopause on women's well-being.
Supervisors by Dr Deborah Lancastle and Professor Bev John, and Kate Bache from Health and Her.
External partner: HealthandHer.com
This is an ESF-funded KESS PhD.
Kerry-Ann's ESF-funded KESS research is in partnership with United Welsh and Monmouthshire Housing Association to trial Motivational Interviewing (MI) as a potential method for reducing hoarding behaviour. MI is a conversational method used to identify and enhance an individual’s desire to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence.
Supervisors: Dr Philip Tyson; Mary-Claire O'Connell
Title: Exploring methodological issues in social prescribing evaluation in the community.
Supervisors: Prof Carolyn Wallace, Prof David Pontin