Role
Dr Danai Serfioti is a Lecturer (Occupational Psychology), a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), a certified psychometric test user (Level A and B) registered with the British Psychological Society and a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol). She teaches on both the undergraduate and postgraduate psychology courses. Some of the modules include:
- Research in Organisations (Module Leader)
- Work & Wellbeing
- Learning Training & Development
- Understanding Organisations
- Research Methods
- Professional Practice in Psychology
- Developing Academic skills in Psychology
Danai also provides supervision to undergraduate and postgraduate students on their research projects. She is currently on supervision teams for four PhD students.
Career overview
Danai has a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Occupational Psychology. She received her PhD in Applied Clinical Psychology from the University of Nottingham in the military-civilian transition of physically and psychologically traumatised British veterans and their spouses.
Danai has worked in academia since 2016, starting as a Teaching Fellow in Occupational Psychology at The University of Nottingham, during her PhD studies. She then worked at King’s College London [The King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR)] as a Research Associate exploring the socioeconomic transition of British veterans along with new treatment approaches for morally injured British veterans. She has also taught in a wide range of modules in the BSc Psychology and MSc Mental Health. She has worked as a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Derby leading modules in Psychopathology and Research Methods.
Danai has over ten years of hands-on experience working with vulnerable groups of people, both adults and children in the NHS, charities and educational settings in the UK. More specifically, she has worked as an Assistant Psychologist as part of an NHS multi-disciplinary team collaborating with Clinical Psychologists and other professionals to deliver a 12-week holistic treatment programme to chronic-pain patients. She has worked as a Learning Mentor in mainstream schools and Teaching Assistant (Level 2) in Special Educational Needs (SEN) schools, supporting and teaching children and adolescents from diverse backgrounds. She has also collaborated with UK Charities which actively support women who suffered domestic violence.
Research areas
Danai is using qualitative and narrative approaches aiming to capture authentic human experiences. Her areas of interest include life transitions and identity, experiences of any type of abuse/violence and their impact on self and identity, psychological trauma (war and non-war-related) and moral injury.
Danai is currently receiving training in Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), a short-term treatment for adult and child survivors who continue to suffer from past experiences of traumatic stressors, aiming to utilise these skills and knowledge in future research projects.
External activity
Danai is an Associate Editor in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management and a committee member of the East Midlands BPS branch (The British Psychological Society)
Sponsors and collaborators
King’s College London - The King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR)
The University of Nottingham
Publications
Serfioti, D., Murphy, D., Greenberg, N., & Williamson, V. (2023). Professionals’ perspectives on relevant approaches to psychological care in moral injury: A qualitative study. Journal of Clinical Psychology (under review).
Burdett, H., Sharp, M. L., Serfioti, D., Jones, M., Pernet, D., Hull, L., ... & Fear, N. T. (2023). Employment and mental health during the initial period of the coronavirus pandemic among UK ex-service personnel. Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health, e20220064.
Serfioti, D., Murphy, D., Greenberg, N., & Williamson, V. (2022). Effectiveness of treatments for symptoms of post-trauma related guilt, shame and anger in military and civilian populations: a systematic review. BMJ Mil Health.
Williamson, V., Murphy, D., Aldridge, V., Bonson, A., Serfioti, D., & Greenberg, N. (2022). Development of an intervention for moral injury-related mental health difficulties in UK military veterans: a feasibility pilot study protocol. European journal of psychotraumatology, 13(2), 2138059.
Serfioti, D., Chang-Tave, A., Gribble, R., Lawrence, E., Fear, N., & Burdett, H. (2022). Change in Socioeconomic Status & the Role of Transition among those who have left the UK Armed Forces. https://s31949.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/20220819-Report-SocioEconomic-FINAL.pdf
Lamb, D., Gnanapragasam, S., Greenberg, N., Bhundia, R., Carr, E., Hotopf, M., ... & Wessely, S. (2021). Psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on 4378 UK healthcare workers and ancillary staff: initial baseline data from a cohort study collected during the first wave of the pandemic. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 78(11), 801-808.
Smith, L. E., Serfioti, D., Weston, D., Greenberg, N., & Rubin, G. J. (2022). Adherence to protective measures among healthcare workers in the UK: a cross-sectional study. Emergency Medicine Journal, 39(2), 100-105.
Serfioti, D., & Hunt, N. (2021). Extreme sport as an intervention for physically injured military veterans: the example of competitive motorsport. Disability and rehabilitation, 1-9.
Sharp, M. L., Serfioti, D., Jones, M., Burdett, H., Pernet, D., Hull, L., ... & Fear, N. T. (2021). UK veterans’ mental health and well-being before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study. BMJ open, 11(8), e049815.
Sharp, M. L., Serfioti, D., Jones, M., Burdett, H., Pernet, D., Hull, L., ... & Fear, N. T. (2020). COVID-19: impact on the health and wellbeing of ex-serving personnel (veterans-check) protocol paper. medRxiv, 2020-09.