PhD research
Postgraduate research students are a central part of CRACKLE and conduct high-quality research into aspects of decision-making both in and out of the laboratory:
Geoff Sallis (M.Sc., M.B.A., B.Sc.) was the Assistant Chief Fire Officer for the Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue and a Visiting Research Fellow in the CRACKLE Lab and is conducting his PhD into Fireground Decision-making.
Onyekachi David’s Ph.D. concerns the psychological correlates of long-term diabetes. His work is funded by the Niger Delta Development Commission and he has collected data for a large-scale survey and follow-up focus groups in many Nigerian clinical populations.
Janet Oostendorp-Godfrey’s Ph.D. is exploring whether the presence of “classroom dogs” improves the attentional focus and working memory of children with special needs.
Alice Jones’ Ph.D. is concerned with the adaptation of former military personnel to civilian life and the well-being of these personnel. Her work will research how ex-army personnel make the transition into civilian life, to understand their adjustment and explore how individuals make sense of this experience.
Nazahar Rahim’s Ph.D. topic is: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability: Exploring the factors associated with the adoption of online CSR initiatives among the secondary market public listed companies in Malaysia.
Matthew Wilson’s Ph.D. topic Constructing ideal selves through propinquitous communication on YouTube is concerned with the issue of YouTube usage and the effects on the self image.
Lauren Wilson’s M.For.Psych. is exploring links between degrees of personality traits and patterns of brain activity mapped using CRACKLE Lab’s dense-array EEG equipment.
Other recently completed Postgraduate research projects are:
Steven Baker’s Ph. D. project (funded by a university studentship) was concerned with the unconscious effects of emotion on learning and decision-making and employed dense-array EEG to map brain activity related to these effects. This is ground-breaking work that has been presented at the high-profile British Association of Cognitive Neuroscience conference.
Richard Moody’s M.Sc (res) project examined the brain activity patterns associated with the brain state of mind-wandering and day-dreaming. His results show ground-breaking evidence on this topic with relevance for situations which require or demand sustained attentional focus.
Sharon Davis’ Ph. D. project (which attained a GWR award) was concerned with obstetric decision-making in regard to foetal cardiac monitoring and involved collaboration with Bristol Royal Infirmary. Her work has been presented at international conferences in USA and UK.
Simon Toms’ Ph.D. project was concerned with the psychological impact of agency working, a topic he has gone on to successfully publish in many articles and conference presentations.
Dritan Nikolla’s project (funded by the MoD research grant) is concerned with emotional arousal and somatic markers in situation awareness and time perception