Sergio A. Silverio

Sergio A. Silverio is a Chartered Psychologist, Social Scientist, and qualitative research expert specialising in lifecourse analysis, with a primary research interest in women’s mental health. Sergio holds two Master’s degrees, the first in Psychological Sciences (Clinical & Health Psychology) from the University of Liverpool; the second in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology from Brunel University London. At Liverpool he was trained as a Grounded Theorist – a methodology he would later employ in his Thesis focused on never married older women, gender identity, and social networks; which attracted critical acclaim from The British Psychological Society. His Thesis at Brunel focused on anxiety and the antenatal clinic; and won the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology’s 40th Anniversary Master’s Thesis Prize. His Doctoral research at King’s College London has attracted a Personal Fellowship from the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration – South London.

Sergio joined King’s College London in 2019 having previously worked within various academic institutions, most notably the University College London’s Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women’s Health, where he led the qualitative arm of an NIHR-funded national study investigating women’s experiences of accessing early pregnancy assessment units. At King’s, Sergio is the Qualitative Research Lead for both the School of Life Course & Population Sciences and the Qualitative Knowledge Hub at the King’s Health Partners Institute for Women & Children’s Health. In this role, he has a mandate for the development, delivery, improvement, evaluation, and expansion of the qualitative research provision which – along with the Advanced Qualitative Methods Short Course he leads – has quickly gained national and international reputation for excellence.

Sergio’s research focuses on the qualitative experience of women’s identity changes over the lifecourse; and especially at lifecourse ruptures such as during experiences of loss – be that loss of identity, perceived loss of sanity, or loss through bereavement. His work adopts a critical female psychology lens, which enables him to focus on and the psychological, socio-political, and emotional impacts caused by these key life transitions. Most recently, Sergio has led the largest portfolio of international research dedicated to understanding the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on maternity care, pregnancy, childbirth, and perinatal bereavement, including how we re-configure, recover, and re-build services and care provision. Sergio has a successful track-record of attracting grant funding and supervising students at both Master’s and Doctoral level. He is open to enquiries from prospective students whose research interests or methodological approaches align with his own.

Research Interests

• Women’s Mental Health
• Trauma, Bereavement, & Loss
• Maternal Health Systems & Policy
• Qualitative Research
• Lifecourse Analysis