Amber McKenzie

Amber is currently a second year PhD student funded by The Colt Foundation and situated in the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR), King’s College London. Before joining King’s College London, Amber obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 2016 in Psychology from Queen Mary, University of London and in 2018 completed her Master of Science degree at King’s College London in Occupational Psychiatry and Psychology at King’s College London.

Amber went onto work as a Research Assistant and Study Coordinator on several projects at KCMHR including a study exploring associations between dementia and trauma for older veterans, and an evaluation study of a Ministry of Defence mental fitness initiative.

Amber’s current PhD work sets out to explore adjustment disorder in the UK Armed Forces population. Using a mixed-methods approach, Amber aims to provide a profile of what an adjustment disorder looks like for Armed Forces personnel and veterans, to identify potential risk and protective factors, and outline prognosis outcomes. Amber also teaches on the Psychology BSc programme and contributes to the development of undergraduate modules. Her research interests are mostly in occupational mental health, mental health interventions, mental health implications for ethnic minorities and ethnic minorities experiences in the military.

Research Interests

• Occupational mental health
• Military psychiatry
• Clinical psychology

Teaching

• BSc Psychology 
• BSc Psychology and Neuroscience 

Expertise & Public Engagement

Amber has worked collaboratively with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to independently evaluate mental health initiatives developed within their organisation.

Key Publications

McKenzie, A., Croak, B., Rafferty, L., Greenberg, N., & Stevelink, S. A. (2021). A Service Evaluation of the Military HeadFIT Initiative: An Implementation Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(14), 7375.

McKenzie, A., Allister, R., Humphrey, D., Moore, K., Greenberg, K., & Greenberg, N. (2020). An evaluation of a veterinary-specific mental health service. Occupational Medicine, 70(3), 169-175.

Greenberg, N., Stevelink, S., Rafferty, L., Greenberg, K. & McKenzie, A. (2020). A case-control study examining the association between service-related mental ill-health and dementia in male military veterans over the age of 65. Available at: https://kcmhr.org/pdf/2020_MIDST_report.pdf.