Research expertise
Research students will lead in-depth advanced research projects that have significant impact on patient care, medical education, and physical and mental health within diverse communities and contexts. Students join our research community centred within the newly establish Three Counties Medical School, that brings together researchers with diverse expertise across medicine, including these specialist topics that research students can focus on:
- Medical education
- Medical science
- Clinical practice
- Patient-centred care
- Mental health and illness
- Medical treatments
Working under the careful supervision of experienced researchers, postgraduate research students will explore key national and internal issues that impact on the design and delivery of medical education, medical clinical practice, patient-centred care, human health, and sustainability issues within medical practice.
We also have links with national and international industry, and government and NGO environmental, and health groups and agencies, including NHS partners, educational institutions and voluntary sector organisations. Where possible we support students to collaborate with these organisations to enhance the relevance and application of their research.
Research supervisors
Medical Education
Professor Rachel Ashworth
Expertise: medical education research; qualitative and sociological research methods, including interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA); the effectiveness of integrative approaches to teaching biological science in the clinical context.
Dr Leo Donnelly
Expertise: medical education, especially the optimisation of anatomical knowledge acquisition and the uses of computer-aided learning and haptic modelling, as well as the use of imaging modalities such as ultrasound.
Professor Lisa Jones
Expertise: medical student wellbeing and achievement; quantitative research methods; the effectiveness of learning and teaching behavioural science in the clinical context, and learning and teaching about mental health and mental illness.
Professor Kay Mohanna
Expertise: medical education teaching and learning; conversation analysis of video recorded data, qualitative methods using a thematic analytical approach; identity formation, diversity and inclusion, leadership and the use of humanities in teaching and learning..
Professor Sandra Nicholson
Expertise: medical educational research and scholarship that enhances the experience of both students and tutors, improves the care and satisfaction of patients, and the field of medical student selection and widening participation ; interdisciplinary approach to research including working with policy holders; quantitative and qualitative educational methodologies.
Dr Russell Peek
Expertise: quantitative and qualitative research in medical education, working across traditional disciplinary and professional boundaries; complexity and uncertainty within medicine, and the psychophysiology of stress, performance and thriving in clinical learners.
Professor Rebecca Stack
Expertise: medical education, particularly approaches to reducing biases in assessment, increasing consistency between assessors, promoting equality and diversity in assessment, and reaching inclusive forms of assessment; qualitative research and analysis, meta synthesis, survey-based research and statistical analysis of quantitative data; with a particular interest in PGR student projects exploring student perceptions of inclusive assessments and differential attainment on healthcare programmes.
Dr Erica Thomas
Expertise: self-compassion, resilience, and wellbeing amongst students in the medical professions.
Dr Elizabeth Walden
Expertise: biochemistry; the role of training and teaching in understanding the basic cellular and genetic underpinnings of disease in modern day medical education and the role of scientists in medical education.
Medical Science
Professor Rachel Ashworth
Expertise: cell signalling research.
Dr Leo Donnelly
Expertise: quantitative research in light and electron microscopy in relation to microvascular permeability as well as nerve regeneration; the establishment of ‘safe zones’ to minimise iatrogenic damage during surgical interventions.
Dr Lindsey Fellows
Expertise: nutritional therapy and human behaviour (motivating clients to change); functional medicine, behaviour change and motivational interviewing; gender, health and physical activity; nutritional therapy and COVID-19; health and wellbeing in schools; motives and barriers to physical exercises during pregnancy; qualitative research methodologies and philosophies.
Professor Lisa Jones
Expertise: adult severe mental illness, in particular the aetiology of major mood disorders; quantitative research methods.
Professor Kay Mohanna
Expertise: conversation analysis of video recorded data qualitative methods that share a thematic analytical approach; identity formation, diversity and inclusion, leadership and the use of humanities in teaching and learning.
Professor Sandra Nicholson
Expertise: medical educational research and scholarship that enhances the experience of both students and tutors, and ultimately seeks to improve the care and satisfaction of patients; interdisciplinary approach to research including work with policy holders; quantitative and qualitative educational methodologies.
Professor Rebecca Stack
Expertise: health psychology and behavioural medicine, including public health, help seeking behaviour, adherence to medicines, stress and coping with illness and patient perceptions of new medical treatments and technologies; qualitative research and analysis, meta synthesis, survey-based research and statistical analysis of quantitative data; a particular interest in PGR student projects on:
- Service user and healthcare professional perceptions of help-seeking behaviour for new onset mental health conditions (barriers and facilitators of help-seeking behaviour).
- Service user and healthcare professional perceptions of help-seeking behaviour for perinatal mental health conditions.
- The impact of financial hardship on health and wellbeing.
- The impact of financial hardship on decisions about health and wellbeing.
Dr Erica Thomas
Expertise: public health, health psychology and behavioural medicine; quantitative and qualitative research methods including quasi-experiments, survey-based research and focus groups; the socioecological determinants of health and health behaviours and how behavioural interventions can be used to encourage physical activity, healthy eating and good mental health
Dr Elizabeth Walden
Expertise: biochemistry; cell-based lab methodologies and an interest in cell signalling, cellular metabolism, and the cellular basis of disease.
Dr Joanne Whittaker
Expertise: immunology; leukaemia; clinical biochemistry; stem cell transplantation; flow cytometry; immunohisto-chemical training; fluorescent staining.
Research groups
Postgraduate Research Students are encouraged to join Research Groups at the University, and those with significant focus on medical education and medical science include: