Role
Daragh McDermott is the Associate Dean for Psychology in the School of Social Sciences. He is Professor of Social & LGBTQ psychology with expertise in prejudice, discrimination and LGBTQ population's wellbeing. He is a Chartered Psychologist, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Psychology at NTU is a large and diverse discipline with over 150 members of academic, professional and technical staff, 3000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and over 70 doctoral students. It is one of the largest providers of research informed psychology education in the UK with a leading profile for student experience and success.
Career overview
Daragh has over 10 years experience working in higher education and has held substantive and honorary positions at ARU Cambridge, NUI Galway (Ireland) and the University of Saskatchewan (Canada).
Prior to joining NTU in 2021, Daragh was Head of School and Associate Professor of Social and LGBTQ Psychology in the School of Psychology & Sport Science at ARU Cambridge where he worked from 2011 - 2021. While at ARU he also held positions as Head of Department, Deputy Head of Department and Course Group Leader.
Daragh was awarded a B.A (Hons) Psychology and a PhD in Experimental Social Psychology from NUI Galway and a PGCert (Learning & Teaching) from ARU Cambridge.
Research areas
Daragh's research focusses on sexual and gender minorities and has included examinations of the prevalence prejudice and discrimination, sexual health, conceptual understandings of prejudice and the development and validation of both psychometric measures and interventions aimed at improving attitudes and enhancing psychological wellbeing.
Daragh's current research projects include the SSHRC funded INQYR Project which examines the role that information and communication technologies can be used to support gender and sexual minority youth as well as the European Commission funded WE Project which explores LGBTQ young peoples experiences of entering the labour market.
Other ongoing projects include the development and validation of a measure of ambivalent homoprejudice towards gay men, and the efficacy assessment of QueerVibe, an online intervention to promote resilience and wellbeing among trans and non-binary young people and work examining the psychological impact of the first COVID-19 national UK lockdown.
External activity
Daragh is Co-Editor in Chief of the Taylor and Francis journal Psychology & Sexuality which he co-edits in collaboration with Professor Todd Morrison (University of Saskatchewan).
He is a consulting editor for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation & Gender Diversity and an editorial board member of the Journal of Social Psychology.
Daragh is Past Chair of the BPS East of England Branch and in 2021 stepped down after a 5 year term as Chair of Trustees for The Kite Trust, a regional charity in the East of England that provides support for sexual and gender minority young people.
Sponsors and collaborators
Key Collaborators:
- Dr Karen Blair (Director of the Trent Social Relations, Attitudes and Diversity Lab, Trent University, Canada)
- Professor Shelley Craig (Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Gender Minority Youth; University of Toronto)
- Dr Igor Grabovac (Resident Physician; Medical University of Vienna)
- Dr Lorraine McDonagh (Senior Research Fellow; University College London)
- Professor Todd Morrison (Professor of Social Psychology; University of Saskatchewan)
- Dr Jason Schaub (Lecturer in Social Work; University of Birmingham)
- Professor Lee Smith (Professor of Public Health; ARU Cambridge)
Funded Projects:
- European Commission (2020-22), Co-investigator and UK lead: 'WE Project: Promoting Work-Based Equality for LGBT+Q+ Youth' (£223,527)
- Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (Canada) (2018-25), Co-investigator and UK Regional Chair: 'Queery'ing resilience: Leveraging information and communication technologies to negotiate gender and sexual minority youth identity and wellbeing within diverse global contexts' (CAD$2.5million)
- Social Sciences & Health Research Council (Canada) (2019), Co-investigator: 'Mobilization LGBTQ+ Conocimento: The Inaugural INQYR Student Symposium (TISS-Mexico)' (CAD$25,000)
- British Academy/Leverhulme Trust (2016), Co-investigator: 'Preparing drivers to respond to road turns safely: What neural mechanism drives differences between experienced and novice drivers' (£9,317)
- Trust for London/Government Equalities Office/LGBT Consortium (2015), Principal Investigator: 'An LGBT Narrative for London & an Analysis of LGBT research in the UK' (£16,500)
Publications
Indicative Publications:
- Jacob, L., López-Sánchez, G. F., Haro, J. M., Koyanagi, A., Kostev, K., Grabovac, I., Oh, H., Pardhan, S., McDermott, D.T., & Shin, J. I. (2021). Association between sexual orientation and subjective cognitive complaints in the general population in England. Journal of Psychiatric Research.
- Grabovac, I., Veronese, N., Stefenac, S., Haider, S., Jackson, S., Koyanagi, Ai, Meilinger, M., Stubbs, B., Firth, J., Soysal, P., Di Gennaro, F., Demurtas, J., McDermott, D. T., Abbs, A., Yang., L., & Smith, L. (2020). Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection and diverse physical health outcomes: An umbrella review of meta-analyses of observational studies. Clinical Infectious Diseases.
- Jacob, L., Smith, L., Butler, L., Barnett, Y., Grabovac, I., McDermott, D., Armstrong, N., Yakkundi, A., & Tully, M. A. (2020). Challenges in the Practice of Sexual Medicine in the Time of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 17(7), 1229–1236.
- Lobban, R., Luyt, R., Martin, S., Brooks, A. S., McDermott, D. T., & Zawisza, M (2020). Right-Wing Populism and Safe Identities? NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies.
- Smith, L., Jacob, L., Yakkundi, A., McDermott, D. T., Armstrong, N., Barnett, Y., López-Sánchez, G., Martin, S., Butler, L., & Tully, M. (2020). Correlates of symptoms of anxiety and depression and mental wellbeing associated with COVID-19: a cross-sectional study of UK-based respondents. Psychiatry Research
- Brooks, A. S., Luyt, R., Zawisza, M., & McDermott, D. T. (2019). Ambivalent Homoprejudice towards Gay Men: Theory Development and Qualitative Investigation. Journal of Homosexuality.
- Grabovac, I., Smith, L., McDermott, D. T., Stefanac, Si., Yang, L., Veronese, N., & Jackson, S. E. (2019). Well-being among older gay and bisexual men and women in England: a cross-sectional population study. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 20(9), 1080–1085.
- McDermott, D.T., Brooks, A. S., Rohleder, P., Blair, K., Hoskin, R. A., & McDonagh, L. K. (2018). Ameliorating Transnegativity: Assessing the immediate and extended efficacy of a pedagogic prejudice reduction intervention. Psychology & Sexuality, 9, 69 – 85.
- McDonagh, L. K., Nielsen, E. J., McDermott, D. T., Davies, N., & Morrison, T. G., (2018). “I want to feel like a full man”: Conceptualizing Gay, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men’s Sexual Difficulties". Journal of Sex Research, 55, 783-801.
- Rohleder, P., McDermott, D. T., Cook, R. (2017).Experiences of sexual self-esteem among men living with HIV. Journal of Health Psychology, 22, 176-185.
Press expertise
LGBTQ Psychology
Prejudice & Discrimination
Social Attitudes
Sexual and Gender Minorities
Daragh's work aligns with the following UN Sustainability Development Goals
