ESTSS 2023

Local Organising Committee

Chérie Armour (Conference Chair)
Professor of Psychological Trauma and Mental Health, School of Psychology, Queens University Belfast

Cherie Armour is a Professor of Psychological Trauma and Mental Health in the School of Psychology at Queens University Belfast. Professor Armour is Research Director for the School of Psychology and Director of the Research Centre for Stress Trauma and Related Conditions (STARC). Cherie has published extensively (<150) on Traumatic Stress with a particular interest in occupational groups that are at an increased risk of experiencing trauma and traumatic stress outcomes (e.g., military, police, and emergency service workers).

Professor Armour is regularly invited to speak at events across the world and has delivered several keynotes at prestigious conferences. Cherie has received several awards for her research including those from ESTSS and ISTSS and leads an extensive programme of externally funded research employing several postdoctoral research associates.

Dominic Murphy (Conference Co-Chair)

Professor Dominic Murphy: Dominic is an academic consultant clinical psychologist and has published extensively within the field of trauma and military mental health. He has worked within the field of military mental health and psychological trauma since 2003. Dominic has worked at Combat Stress where he established and runs a research department co-located between Combat Stress and King’s College London University (https://combatstress.org.uk/Our-research).

Currently Dominic is leading a number of clinical trials. These include an RCT exploring the efficacy of a novel modular treatment for Complex PTSD, an RCT exploring an intervention to support intimate partners living alongside patients with PTSD, an RCT exploring the impact of an App to reduce drinking in veterans with a dual diagnosis and a feasibility trial to develop and new intervention to treatment Moral Injury.

Amongst other roles, he is the President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society (ukpts.org), board member of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (estss.org), Trustee and Director of Research at The Forces in Mind Trust (https://www.fim-trust.org/), a member of the King’s Centre for Military Health department at King’s College London (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr), a member of the scientific advisory board for Chronic Pain Centre for Canadian veterans and is widely published within this are with over 150 publications.

David Babington
BA (Hons), MA, FCIPD; Chief Executive Action Mental Health

CEO since 2010, David leads AMH in supporting 2,000 recovery clients and reaching 30,000 people pa through early intervention and suicide prevention programmes. AMH also delivers Learning Disability, ASD, Eating Disorder, Men’s Sheds and has an Employer Consultancy. Recently AMH merged with New Life Counselling and 12,000 counselling sessions are delivered to service users pa. He is passionate about the mental health sector and raised the issue at Stormont and Westminster campaigning for parity of esteem with physical health.

David has previous experience with the banking, property, consumer and retail sectors and has worked in Europe, Africa and the Middle East delivering leadership programmes.

Donncha Hanna
BSc (Hons), PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS

Donncha Hanna is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and former Research Director of Clinical Psychology at Queens University Belfast. He is a fellow of the Centre for Evidence and Social Innovation and has authored best-selling statistics and research methods books. He has published widely on the measurement and modelling of psychological trauma, adversity and related constructs.

Susan Lagdon

Dr Susan Lagdon is a Lecturer in Mental Health at Ulster University based within the School of Psychology and Institute of Mental Health Sciences. Susan’s research interests include domestic and sexual violence and abuse, particularly the mental health implications of such interpersonal trauma for victims as well as impacts on children and wider family members. Susan is currently leading research which will address public perceptions of coercive and controlling behaviour within intimate relationships. This work is in partnership with the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, Institute of Mental Health Sciences and Queen’s University Belfast.

Emily McGlinchey

Dr Emily McGlinchey is currently working as a Research Fellow at the Stress Trauma and Related Conditions (STARC) Research Lab, based in the Psychology Department of Queen’s University (QUB). Emily is also a BPS accredited Low-Intensity CBT (LI-CBT) therapist with over 3 years of clinical experience working across a range of both statutory and non-statuary mental health services. Emily has a research interest in the area of applied mental health, particularly in the areas of internalising disorders (such as anxiety or depression) and emotional dysregulation. Emily is currently involved in a number of high profile mental health research projects based in QUB.

Joanne Mouthaan

Joanne Mouthaan has a PhD in clinical psychology and works as a senior assistant professor at the Clinical Psychology Department of Leiden University, The Netherlands. She is the educational coordinator for the clinical psychology Bachelor and Master curriculum. Her research focuses on the prediction and prevention of trauma-related health effects and suicide, and the development of professional skills in traumatic stress and suicide prevention, and is part of the Social Resilience and Security Interdisciplinary Program of Leiden University. She was the recipient of the Jan van Dijk Victimology and Victims' Rights Award for her dissertation (2015), and received grants for developing e-learning modules for online treatment skills (FSW Grass Shoots, 2018) and suicide prevention skills for psychologists in training (Third National Agenda Suicide Prevention, 2021-2025). Joanne Mouthaan is the Chair of the Dutch Association for Psychotrauma (NtVP), Treasurer of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS), Co-Chair of the Annual Meeting Committee of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), and an Editorial Board Member for the European Journal for Psychotraumatology.

Ciaran Shannon

Dr Ciaran Shannon is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in The Northern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland. He manages specialist mental health psychology services, including a psychosis prevention team and the Trust’s Mental Health Research Centre – IMPACT. His area of specialism is in psychological intervention and service provision to those diagnosed with severe mental health problems – in particular, on the application of CBT to psychosis. His particular research interest over the past 20 years has been on the effect that trauma (including "Troubles-related" trauma) has on the presentation of these disorders.

Jonathan Smyth

Jonny is the Communications & Fundraising Manager at Action Mental Health. He has a wide range of experience in organisations across the private, public and voluntary sectors. In his role, Jonny leads AMH’s media relations, campaigning, public affairs and fundraising work to help raise awareness and change perceptions of mental health issues in Northern Ireland, as well as raising funds to support Action Mental Health’s services. He is also the Secretariat for the All Party Group on Suicide Prevention at the Northern Ireland Assembly. Jonny is passionate about mental health supporting Action Mental Health’s work at both Stormont and Westminster as well as working with colleagues across the voluntary, community, academic and statutory sectors.

Martin Robinson

Dr Martin Robinson is a Research Fellow in the Stress, Trauma, and Related Conditions (STARC) Research Centre in the Queen’s University Belfast School of Psychology. Martin’s research interests chiefly relate to mental health and wellbeing among those exposed to traumatic stress and marginalized or hard-to-reach populations. Examples of Martin’s work to date include investigations into: the development of post-traumatic stress and resilience following childhood maltreatment; assessment and expression of Complex PTSD among military veterans; Sexual health and wellbeing among young incarcerated men; Psychopathology and resilience following traumatic stress in Colombia