Research Community

Dr Gill McGill is Co-director of the Northern Hub for Veterans and Military Families Research at Northumbria University, supporting its development since 2015. Gill has a growing portfolio of expertise and publications in the field of Veterans and military families research including leading research projects exploring access to health and social care for alcohol-related issues, bereavement, maintaining independence following limb loss and social isolation and loneliness among the LGBT+ Veteran population.  Gill also has significant experience in participant recruitment from ‘hard or reach’/seldom heard populations as well as in the design of peer-informed research projects.  Gill is also employed as an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Social Care in the Department of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at Northumbria University. Gill has a background in Public Health, working as a commissioner and service provider, and she has extensive experience in project management and strategy development in the NHS, Local Authority and Third Sector settings.

Dr Hannah West is the Communications and Engagement Officer for the Female Veterans Transformation Programme (COBSEO Female Veterans Cluster). She works freelance as a researcher affiliated to Newcastle University and is currently working for the Dallaire Centre of Excellence for Peace and Security in Canada, Bodmin Keep military museum and as a Women’s History Network Early Career Fellow. She is also the Founder and Co-Chair of the Defence Research Network and Social Media Editor for the Journal of War and Cultures Studies. Through her research she is committed to uncovering women’s stories of conflict, contemporary and historical,  in order to question gendered understandings of how we know war and what this means for contemporary military cultures and behaviours.

Hannah's research specialises in experimenting with different approaches to war and violence in texts. She works primarily with Roman history and Latin literature, but draws from modern war and security studies, and critical theory, to gain a deeper understanding of how we write, think and talk about the bodies embroiled in conflict. Hannah is currently working on a collaborative project exploring military health, ancient and modern. Outputs will include a public engagement workshop series, articles and chapters. 

Hilary is an Associate Professor in the Veterans and Families Institute for Military Social Research (VFI) at Anglia Ruskin University. There she leads research exploring how Veterans and their significant others live in their comunities with changing health needs and co-morbidities. Hilary's research interests cover health and well-being needs in relation to limb loss, loss of use of limb, long term health needs, chronic pain and how people live adaptively accordingly. 

Howard received his PhD in epidemiology for research on mental health and socioeconomic status of UK Armed Forces personnel transitioning to civilian life. Veterans and transition remain his primary areas of interest, including mental health, social, and economic outcomes. His experience is in mixed-methods research, including cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies, randomised controlled trials, meta-analysis, and data linkage. He has published on the long-term mental health and socioeconomic outcomes of Veterans, as well as other areas of Armed Forces well-being and return from deployment. His current main study is ADVANCE-INVEST, on the consequences of battlefield injury to the transition outcomes of Veterans.

Dr Jacqueline (Jack) Rappoport is a non-clinical lecturer at the Blizard Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, at Queen Mary University of London, teaching MSc programmes in Trauma Sciences, Emergency and Resuscitation Medicine, and Paediatric Trauma Sciences. With over 20 years of experience in forensic mental health and child protection, Jack specialises in trauma recovery, particularly C-PTSD and PTSD. Her clinical background is in Counselling Psychology, where she practices pluralistic counselling using Person-Centered, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy approaches. Jack holds a PhD in Qualitative Research, focusing on trauma, military service, and offending among incarcerated UK veterans. She possesses multiple postgraduate qualifications, including a PGCap in Academic Practice, and a PGDip and PGCert in Counselling Psychology, an MSc in Criminal Justice (MSCJ), and a Master's in Public Administration (MPA) with additional qualifications in Group Facilitation and Training. Jack has also taught Research Methods, Stress Management, Forensic Psychology, Sociology, and Social Change.