CHOICE Team

Professor Gerard Leavey

Director of the Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing

Gerry Leavey took up the post of Director of the Bamford Centre in September 2012 following four years as Director of Research with the Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health.

Prior to this he lived in London, serving as the Director of Research for Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust and as a researcher in the Department of Mental Health Sciences, University College London.

A social scientist, he has a BSc in Policy Studies (University of North London), an MSc in Public Health (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and a PhD in Medical Sociology (University College London).

Dr Grainne McAnee

Research Associate

Dr Rebecca Watterson

Post-Doctoral Research Associate

Rebecca is a historian of mental health and psychiatry, interested in using participatory, creative and embodied research methods to support those living with mental illness today. Her work sits at the juncture between medical history, medical humanities and social sciences. She explores experiences of health, ill health, medicine and science from the 19th century to the modern day, often considering what has been or is still hidden, invisible, excluded or ignored.

Rebecca researches the lived experience of mental ill-health, treatment approaches, stigma, and social exclusion, collaborating with experts by experience and voluntary and community sector organisations. Currently, she is a research associate on the CHOICE (Challenging Health Outcomes/Integrating Care Environments) project, funded by AHRC and based at the Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing of Ulster University. CHOICE's overall aim is to establish and sustain a community partnership to co-produce innovative arts-based approaches to tackling social exclusion and reducing the health inequalities experienced by people living with mental health problems. Our vision is that people living with mental illness can lead healthy, flourishing lives.

Rebecca's PhD research focused on psychosurgery in the UK between 1940 and 1986. Her work in this area is ongoing, following a six-month Scouloudi Fellowship held at the Institute of Historical Research in 2024. Her MA research examined why the enzyme cholinesterase was a significant focus of psychiatric medical research in the UK during the 1950s. She was awarded ‘The Birley Prize for the best MA thesis in social history 2020’ for this work.

Rebecca is co-PI for the podcast and learning resource Epidemic Belfast, asking challenging questions about Northern Ireland's medical history. In part due to this work, Rebecca's research interests expand to the histories of the health of industrial workers, particularly linen workers across Ireland.

She is also the book review editor assistant for Social History of Medicine and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Rebecca is a Director of the Federation for Ulster Local Studies and is passionate about supporting local communities in undertaking and sharing research on their own places.

Research Interests

• History of psychosurgery
• History of mental health and psychiatry - 19th C to the present
• History of industrial workers' health - particularly in the linen industry
• Lived experiences of mental health and mental illness
• History of and experiences of experimental mental and physical medical treatments
• Local studies
• Participatory Action Research
• Creative and embodied research methods

Dr Ian Miller

Senior Lecturer in History

Ian Miller is Senior Lecturer in Medical History at Ulster University, and Senior Fellow of HEA. Ian is author of eight medical history books. History of Ireland in Ten Body Parts was shortlisted in the An Post Irish Book Awards as 'Hodges Figgis History Book of the Year. Earlier books looked at the force-feeding of hunger strikers, how the Irish diet changed (mostly for the worse) after the Irish Famine and the surprisingly interesting history of the Victorian stomach. In 2024, Ian published two books on the thought-provoking history of self-esteem (Polity), and has a four-volume edition on food in 19th-century Britain forthcoming with Routledge.

Ian is PI on the AHRC/DfE-funded project, Epidemic Belfast, a podcast series and learning resource on Belfast's under-explored medical history.

Ian regularly attracts major funding. He is currently involved in the following funded projects:

• (Co-PI) CHOICE: A Community Consortium To Tackle Health Disparities For People Living with Mental Illness (AHRC PI: Gerard Leavey, UU, School of Psychology).
• (Co-PI): Translating Medical History Research into Screen Projects (AHRC Impact Acceleration).
• (PI) Engaging Local Belfast Communities in Medical History and Heritage (AHRC Impact Acceleration).
• (PI) ‘Feeding Children? Food Poverty across Ireland: Historical, Current and Future Perspectives' (AHRC Impact Acceleration).

Ian has held visiting fellowships at the Max Planck Centre for the History of Emotions (Berlin), INSERM (Paris), Institute for General Practice and Community Medicine (Oslo) and, most recently in 2022, at HEX (Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences), University of Tampere.

Ian's work has featured in Guardian, Independent, London Review of Books, New Yorker, Sunday Times, Sunday Post, Irish Times, Times Literary Supplement among many others. Ian has appeared and consulted on a number of BBC, RTÉ and Disney+ stations.

Ian is Book Review Editor for the journal Social History of Medicine, Secretary for Royal Irish Academy (Historical Studies), AHRC Peer Review College member and Irish Research Council Board panel member.

Dr Kyle Boyd

Lecturer in Interaction Design

Kyle is a Lecturer of Interaction Design and is based at the Belfast School of Art at Ulster University Belfast.

Kyle received a Bachelor of Science in Interactive Multimedia Design, a Master of Arts in Multidisciplinary Design and a PhD in Computer Science all from Ulster University. In 2015 Kyle joined Ulster as a Lecturer in Interaction Design.

Kyle has research interests which range from Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience Design, User Interface Design, User Experience Research, Usability Engineering, Social Media and Digital Health which is the application of digital technology in healthcare. He has published in these areas with papers spanning usability, Interface design and measuring user experience.

Kyle has been involved on research projects funded by InvestNI, InterTrade Ireland and the EU.

Dr Pamela Whitaker

Lecturer in Art Psychotherapy

Pamela trained as an art therapist in Vancouver and has worked in Canada, Malaysia and Ireland. She is interested in contemporary art and creative health, art therapy in museums and galleries, environmental art therapy, the walking studio, and ecologies of care. She is a member of the Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapists and the British Association of Art Therapists and registered with the Health and Care Professions Council.

Pamela is the founding co-editor of Polyphony: Journal of the Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapists and past editor of the Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal. She is also a special issue co-editor on the topic of nature assisted art therapy for the International Journal of Art Therapy. She has served on the editorial boards of Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association and the International Journal of Art Therapy.

Pamela is a co-investigator for CHOICE, Challenging Health Outcomes/Integrating Care Environments: A Community Consortium To Tackle Health Disparities For People Living with Mental Illness funded by the Arts Humanities Research Council, which is a reseach project led by Professor Gerard Leavey, Director of the Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing aiming to improve the quality of life for people with lived experience of mental health challenges.

She is also the first Practice Based Researcher in Residence at the Void Arts Centre in Derry funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Impact Accelerator Account. The focus of her research will be The Nature of Life: Gardens as Art and The Walking Studio, both methods of engagement within civic society that focus on environmental activism and pride of place.

Pamela has written chapters for the books Materials and Media in Art Therapy, Art Therapy and Postmodernism, Found Objects in Art Therapy, Bridging the Creative Arts Therapies and Arts in Health and Ecopoiesis: A New Perspective for the Expressive and Creative Arts Therapies in the 21st Century.

She has also written editorials and articles on environmental art therapy, material and visual culture, festival art therapy and art therapy pedagogy, most notably: Full On - Festival Art Therapy, Make Yourself at Home: Home Studios as Pedagogical Practice (co-written with her colleague Dr. Chris McHugh at Ulster University), Groundswell: The Nature and Landscape of Art Therapy and Studios of Life: Outsider Art at School.

Pamela has been a conference keynote speaker for the Canadian Art Therapy Association, the Hong Kong Association of Art Therapists and the Healing through Photography conference at Belfast Exposed Gallery. She was also a visiting artist for the MA Art Therapy course at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.

Pamela is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and has achieved a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice, Ulster University. She is currently the External Examiner for the MA Art Psychotherapy programme at the University of Roehampton.

Dr Saul Golden

Senior Lecturer

Dr Saul Golden, SFHEA, is a Lecturer in Architecture and Spatial Design, a Chartered UK architect and academic with over twenty-years of international practice/research/teaching expertise across architecture, interior and urban design.

Saul's research and teaching are underpinned by peer-reviewed publications and field-based projects through his UK trademarked, Urban Research Lab, which promotes trans-disciplinary, inter-sector collaboration across architecture, interior, and urban design related to mapping and influencing policy on more sustainable shared and diverse urban spaces, critical spatial practice, and innovative performative public engagement methods. His 2016 doctoral thesis, Beyond Architecture: Other Influences on Approaches to Practice and Urban Space, combined architectural and social sciences approaches to uniquely examine the changing nature of architecture practice, and changing roles architects undertake as critical spatial practitioners. Saul currently has four PhD supervision roles across architecture, engineering, art-practice, and social sciences topics.

In 2017-2018 Saul was Principal Investigator for a GCRF Pump-prime project in Ghana titled Sustainable Design and Shared Space (SDSS), integrating research into urban-rural design, off-grid energy, and clean water infrastructure for deprived communities in partnership with the Ghana Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), NGO Just Ghana, and Ulster University's Centre for Sustainable Technologies. Since 2016, Saul has also been a Visiting Academic with the Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing undertaking research on architecture, interior and urban design relative to smart-ageing and dementia challenges, ageing-in-place, and healthy communities in the UK, US, and China.

Outside of his academic roles, Saul enjoys a strong international professional network through his practice, Gillespie-Golden Architects, and elected positions as a Trustee of the RIBA and RSUA; from 2012-2018 he was also a Director of built environment outreach charity PLACE Ltd.

Dr Stephen Shannon

Senior Lecturer

Dr. Stephen Shannon is a Lecturer and Course Director in the School of Sport within the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences.

Stephen was awarded a BSc and PhD from Ulster University, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, teaching on several undergraduate and postgraduate psychology and mental health modules at Ulster, as well as supervising MSc and doctoral students.
Stephen is research active through the Sport and Exercise Research Institute and the Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Well-Being. He has published >30 peer-reviewed research on mental health promotion within and through sport and physical activity, and co-authored a Sage textbook. As a coinvestigator, Stephen has helped secured grant awards from UEFA, the Public Health Agency, and the Education Authority, among others.

Through both teaching and research, Stephen works closely with a range of external stakeholders in sport, health, and policy contexts, which have informed the delivery and hosting of conference symposiums in Ireland, the UK and Internationally.

Professor Gavin Davidson

Professor of Social Care, Queen's University Belfast

Find out more about Professor Gavin Davidson

Professor Brynmor Lloyd-Evans

Professor of Mental Health and Social Inclusion, University College London, Division of Psychiatry

Find out more about Professor Brynmor Lloyd-Evans

Kyria Hannigan

Community Navigator based at Praxis Care

Kyria has been a valued member of the Praxis Care Derry/Londonderry team since joining in 2017.

Initially commencing employment in the role of support worker within Supported Living adult domiciliary care, her passion for ensuring the people we support were enabled to live fulfilling and meaningful lives was undeniable. Her solution focused approach combined with Kyria’s natural tenacity repeatedly saw barriers removed for many who had previously been marginalised; making long held ambitions a reality.

Efforts and outcomes achieved saw her commended by those we support, their representatives, commissioners and colleagues alike which led to progression to the role of Team Leader in which she continued to thrive. Kyria sees the person and not the label and in highlighting strengths held, empowers individuals to dare to view things from a new perspective to develop greater possibilities and potential.

Kyria’s personal life saw her taking on caring responsibilities for others impacted by addition and poor mental health. Kyria understands the extensive and far-reaching impact poor health can have for both the individual themselves as well as their wider circle.

An experience often needlessly made more challenging due to stigmatisation that can see people’s voices minimised, silenced and forgotten. Understanding the impact inequality and lack of resources within her own area has, she actively sought to become part of the solution.

This led to engagement in community development, developing an unwavering commitment to fostering empowerment, advocacy and partnership working in the hope of creating more inclusive and resilient communities for the benefit of all, irrespective of need.