Dr
Emma
Broglia

School of Psychology

Lecturer in Psychology

e.l.broglia@sheffield.ac.uk
ICOSS Building

Full contact details

Dr Emma Broglia
School of Psychology
ICOSS Building
219 Portobello

Sheffield

S1 4DP

Profile

I am a Lecturer in Psychology specialising in student mental health, with a particular focus on therapeutic effectiveness, practice-based evidence, and humanistic, person-centred approaches. I have a history of working with counselling and psychotherapy organisations like BACP, UKCP, Student Minds, and TASO, as well as therapists who work in university support services. My research is collaborative and deeply embedded into frontline clinical practice, with the aim to generate evidence for talking therapies and wellbeing interventions I particularly enjoy working with practitioners and service users through knowledge exchange and co-production, with the goal to improve mental health outcomes, as well as develop, implement, and validate new clinical measures for routine practice ( ). 
Alongside my research, I serve as the Research Lead for a practice-research network across university counselling services () and chair of a consortium of research and training clinics (). I am the module lead and teach across two modules including Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy (undergraduate) and Professional Skills for Psychologists (postgraduate). I supervise research projects concerning these topics across undergraduate, master's, DClinPsy, and PhD levels. Recently, my research has broadened to explore clinical textual data and longitudinal datasets from mental health services. Together, we use machine learning and natural language processing with the aim to develop data-informed risk profiles and early interventions for emerging adults and students. 

Qualifications
  • PhD funded by , 51²è¹Ý¶ù, topic: student mental health and the effectiveness of in-house university counselling incorporating an embedded feasibility trial
  • MRes; Brain Imaging and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Birmingham
  • BSc; Psychology. University of Birmingham
Research interests

My research interests focus on using applied research methods to investigate student mental health, therapeutic effectiveness, and the improvement of routine outcome monitoring. I am particularly interested in generating practice-based evidence by embedding research directly into frontline clinical practice and university support services. A core part of my work involves designing pilot and feasibility trials, co-producing and validating novel clinical measures, and exploring longitudinal and clinical textual data to develop early interventions. Ultimately, I am dedicated to collaborative research that has the potential to shape higher education policy, build effective service partnerships, and improve the provision of mental health support for students and emerging adults.

Publications

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Research group

Wellbeing of individuals and society

Grants

BACP Collaborative Research Grant (2026–2028): Principal Investigator for a £47,349 international pilot study across 12 university counselling centres in the UK and USA. This project focuses on validating a new culturally adapted clinical measure (SEAM-10) and integrating student experience data with clinical outcomes to develop data-informed risk profiles and staff training to improve measure adoption. 

BACP Collaborative Research Grant (2027–2028): Co-Principal Investigator on a £49,963 feasibility trial evaluating an adapted, brief group Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) intervention for university students. This research aims to provide an inclusive, rapid alternative to traditional one-to-one counselling.

TASO Quasi-Experimental Design Impact Evaluation (2024–2026): Co-Investigator on a £185,000 project with Ipsos Policy and Evaluation Unit to evaluate wellbeing interventions in higher education. I lead the lived experience panel and co-development processes to ensure the student and client voice was embedded throughout the design and evaluation of new wellbeing interventions.

Knowledge Exchange for Policy Funding (2023–2025): Principal Investigator on two projects awarded £54,000 and £51,000 to assess students’ experiences of current mental health and wellbeing measures and subsequently co-develop a new measure for student experience and academic adjustment (  in partnership with the BACP, PCMIS Health Technologies, and international colleagues from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH).

ESRC UKRI Network Grant (2020–2024): Co-Principal Investigator on a 4-year £910,692 grant for the Student Mental Health Research Network (SMaRteN). I led the development of a multi-institution longitudinal dataset to help universities establish student mental health cohort studies and develop guidance on measuring student mental health. 
 

Teaching interests
  • Student mental health
  • Pilot and feasibility trial methods
  • Counselling and psychotherapy
  • Clinical psychology
Teaching activities


I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and teach across both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. I am the Module Lead and teach on an undergraduate module Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy, as well as a master's module Professional Skills for Psychologists, which covers topics such as open science, grant writing, and publishing. I also teach feasibility trial and co-production methodology within the master’s research methods programme. 

I supervise research projects across undergraduate, master's, DClinPsy, and PhD levels. These projects employ quantitative and qualitative methods to characterise student mental health needs, evaluate clinical interventions, and develop new measures. Currently, I supervise three UKRI-funded postgraduate researchers exploring longitudinal mental health trajectories using machine learning and natural language processing, co-developing a mental health measure for autistic university students, and a longitudinal student mental health cohort with data linkage. 

Alongside my work at 51²è¹Ý¶ù, I am actively involved in external examination for doctoral and DClinPsy theses. I serve as an External Examiner for the DClinPsy programme at University College London (UCL) and a MSc Mental Health and Counselling module. To date I have served as an external examiner for five PhD and twelve DClinPsy theses. 

I supervise doctoral and clinical research focusing on characterising student mental health needs, evaluating clinical interventions, and developing new measures. My current students and their research projects include:

Georgia Smith (PhD, started 2023): Understanding and measuring psychological distress in Autistic students to co-produce a new mental health measure.

Kristenn (PhD, started 2024): Integrating longitudinal insights and counselling outcomes for a perspective of students’ mental Health experiences and perceived barriers in accessing support

Anna Kamardina (PhD, started 2025): Using depression and anxiety trajectory profiling and Natural Language Processing to improve psychological intervention effectiveness for the student population. 

Bethan Cumber (DClinPsy, started 2025): A discourse analysis of student self-referral narratives and their alignment with psychotherapy outcomes. 
 

Professional activities and memberships

Editorial Roles: Section Editor for Cogent Mental Health (Taylor & Francis). Past Editorial Board member for the British Journal of Guidance & Counselling and Guest Editor for a student mental health special issue in the Counselling and Psychotherapy Research Journal. 

Committees & Advisory Boards: Executive Officer for the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR) and member of the organising committee for the SPR International Conference.

Research Networks: Co-Investigator and organising committee member for the UKRI-funded Student Mental Health Research Network (SMaRteN). 

PhD Opportunities

I am happy to receive applications for PhD study in my area of research.

We advertise PhD opportunities (Funded or Self-Funded) on 

For further information, please see the department PhD Opportunities page.

Links