Sergio A. Silverio

Biography

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. Having read for a Masters in Psychological Sciences (Clinical & Health Psychology) at the University of Liverpool, his work here focused on key life transitions such as pregnancy, motherhood, and widowhood. During this time, he developed an interest in Lifecourse Analysis and Qualitative Methods and 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. This attracted critical acclaim from his learned academy: The British Psychological Society.

Since graduating, Sergio has worked within various academic departments, most notably as a Research Assistant in Qualitative Methods at the University College London’s Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women’s Health [EGA IfWH], where he led on the qualitative arm of an NIHR-funded study investigating women’s experiences of accessing early pregnancy assessment units. At the end of his time at the EGA IfWH, Sergio was bestowed an Honorary Research Fellowship, before joining King’s College London and commencing a second Masters in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology at Brunel University London, completing a thesis entitled: ‘Anxiety and the Antenatal Clinic’, which would go onto win the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology’s 40th Anniversary Master’s Thesis Prize. Sergio now holds the position of Research Associate in Social Science of Women’s Health within the Department of Women & Children’s Health, where he received a Personal Doctoral Fellowship from the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration in South London. He is also the Qualitative Research Lead for the School of Life Course & Population Sciences, with a mandate for the development, delivery, improvement, evaluation, and expansion of the qualitative research provision – which, along with the annual Advanced Qualitative Methods Short Course he leads, has quickly gained national and international reputation for excellence. Additionally, Sergio leads the Qualitative Knowledge Hub at the Institute for Women & Children’s Health at King’s Health Partners; and holds an Honorary Lectureship at the University of Liverpool.

Sergio’s research focuses on the qualitative experience of women’s identity changes over the lifecourse; and especially at lifecourse ruptures such as after bereavement or 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 me to focus on and the psychological, social, and emotional impacts caused by these key life transitions. Most recently, Sergio’s work has focused on maternity care, pregnancy, childbirth, and perinatal bereavement during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This work has seen Sergio secure grant funding; co-ordinate research locally, nationally, and internationally; and co-lead a national collaborative for maternal and child health researchers working on pandemic-related research to collate evidence and inform policy to recover maternity services and care after the pandemic health system shock. Sergio has a successful track-record of supervising students at both Master’s and Doctoral level and 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
• Lifecourse Analysis
• Qualitative Research