Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange)
Rusi Jaspal is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange) and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Brighton. He is responsible for all aspects of research and knowledge exchange development at the University as well as for the Brighton Doctoral College. Rusi Jaspal oversees the University’s preparations for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF). Rusi Jaspal is passionate about the role of research and knowledge exchange in teaching and learning and in our local, national and international engagement.
Rusi Jaspal studied at the University of Cambridge, University of Surrey and Royal Holloway, University of London. Rusi Jaspal was awarded a personal chair in Psychology and Sexual Health at De Montfort University Leicester in 2015 and held several senior management roles at that institution, including that of Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research. Additionally, he has held professorships at Åbo Akademi University in Finland, where he helped set up the Minority Research Profile, and at Nottingham Trent University, where he founded the Identity Change Research Group.
Professor Jaspal's own research cuts across the fields of psychology and public health, focusing particularly on social psychological approaches to promoting good psychological and physical health outcomes (especially in minority groups). He has developed the Health Adversity Risk Model to predict the impact of social and psychological stress on health outcomes. Much of his research using the model has focused on HIV prevention, HIV care and mental health. Rusi Jaspal has contributed to the development of Identity Process Theory. Additionally, Professor Jaspal has conducted extensive research into aspects of psychological wellbeing among gay men; the management of identities in conflict; national identity; prejudice and discrimination; public understanding of science, technology and medicine; and the psychological aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods and has contributed to textbooks on psychological research methods. Rusi Jaspal is the author or editor of seven books and has written over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and reports for the Department of Health. He continues to supervise and examine PhD students in his areas of expertise.
Rusi Jaspal is a Chartered Psychologist and Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. As a passionate advocate for knowledge exchange, he has sat on numerous national and international committees relating to his research. He was on the Working Group that produced the UK’s first clinical recommendations for integrated sexual health services for trans, including non-binary people, in 2018. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Rusi Jaspal was appointed Social Isolation Adviser to Wandsworth Borough Council, London, and has previously been a trustee of the LGBT Foundation, Saving Lives (an HIV charity in the West Midlands), Leicestershire AIDS Support Service (LASS), Stonewall Housing, the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester, and a member of the Medical Board of NAZ Project London (a sexual health charity focusing on ethnic minority communities in the UK). He was a member of the Advisory Group of the National HIV Commission, as well as that of HIV Prevention England, and that of the Terrence Higgins Trust. He serves on many journal editorial boards, including HIV Medicine; Mental Health, Religion and Culture; the American Journal of Sexuality Education; Israel Affairs; the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism; the British Journal of Social Psychology; and the Journal of Social and Political Psychology.