Dr Jenny Mercer

Overview

Dr Jenny Mercer is a Reader in Qualitative Approaches to Applied Psychology and the Graduate Studies Lead for Health Sciences at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She has extensive experience and expertise in doctoral education:

Jenny has held a senior role as the Graduate Studies Lead ​for Health Sciences since 2015, with responsibility for operation and governance of doctoral programmes, students, and supervisors. She chairs the School’s Research Degree Sub-Committee and is a member of the University’s Research Degree Committee.

Her profile includes multiple completions (see ‘Teaching’ for supervisory profile), chairing of vivas and examining doctoral theses at a variety of UK HEIs. Jenny delivers training courses and workshops to both doctoral researchers and supervisors covering many aspects of the doc​toral journey.

In 2020 she set up the Doctoral Wellbeing Initiative at Cardiff Met, which offers bespoke resources, clear signposting and conducts research to further understand and enhance the student experience. Currently, she leads a pan Wales HE initiative, ‘Researcher Wellbeing Cymru’, developing a digital wellbeing platform. Her work to improve the environment for doctoral researchers at Cardiff Met was recognised with the ‘Doctoral Researcher Community Impact of the Year’ award in 2023. Jenny describes supervising doctoral students as the most fulfilling part of her job.

Her research involves numerous qualitative approaches (e.g., thematic analysis, grounded theory, interpretative phenomenological analysis, participatory designs). Outputs are of relevance to the sub-disciplines of health, forensic, education and social psychology. Her current focus is on two broad areas of wellbeing and student experience:

Wellbeing: the role that outdoors, connecting to nature and animals may play in enhancing health and wellbeing. She has secured external funding for several evaluation of green care initiatives. Jenny is theme lead for ‘Connecting to Nature and Green Spaces’ within the Public Health and Wellbeing Research Group in CSSHS.

Student experience: since completing her own doctoral study entitled ‘Access and Beyond: mature students’ transitions into and through higher education’ Jenny has maintained a keen interest in student experience of higher education. Much of her work focuses on under-represented groups with publications on non-traditional aged learners, international students, males who study psychology and doctoral researchers. She is Affiliated Research Lead of CSESP’s Applied Psychology in Education and Community Settings.

More recently these two areas have merged, with a focus on wellbeing amongst doctoral researchers, and the strategies they use to cope with stress.

Research Publications

Research Explorer Profile Visit the research portal