Dr Raul Szekely, BSc, MSc, PhD, AFHEA

Profile

As an Applied Psychologist, I integrate theory, methods, and evidence from social, health, and behavioural sciences with approaches from human-computer interaction to develop and evaluate digital tools and interventions that support learning, improve well-being, and drive positive societal change. My work takes an inclusive, participatory stance, involving close collaboration with diverse users and key stakeholders across the research cycle in order to co-produce technology-enabled solutions that are accessible, meaningful, and socially relevant.

I completed my PhD at the University of Surrey (2025), based in the School of Psychology and the Digital World Research Centre. My doctoral research employed a multi-study, multi-method design to investigate whether and how virtual reality can reduce mental illness stigma among healthcare students, with a particular focus on psychosis and schizophrenia. During my doctoral studies, I also supported teaching and learning activities across the BSc Psychology and MSc Psychology in Game Design and Digital Innovation programmes and gained Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA).

Prior to my PhD, I completed an MSc in Organisational Psychiatry and Psychology with Distinction from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London (2021), for which I was also awarded the Programme Prize for Academic Excellence, and a BSc in Psychology with First Class Honours from Brunel University London (2020).

In July 2025, I joined Queen Mary University of London as a Research Associate within the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, working on an NIHR-SPCR funded project. In this role, I lead the evidence synthesis stream and contribute to the development of a digital health intervention co-designed with people with type 2 diabetes experiencing emotional distress, prioritising accessibility and health equity for underserved communities.

Research

Research Interests:

1. Stigma and health: Examining how negative attitudes and beliefs about health conditions, including mental health, affect patient experiences, healthcare delivery, and clinical outcomes, and developing evidence-based strategies to reduce individual and healthcare professional stigma.

2. Digital (mental) health interventions: Designing, evaluating, and implementing digital tools and interventions, such as web platforms, mobile apps, AI chatbots, serious games, and virtual reality experiences, to support and improve physical and/or mental health and well-being.

3. Equity, accessibility, and inclusion in digital technologies: Investigating disparities in digital technology access and use, including how design choices can exclude or disadvantage certain groups, and advancing solutions to improve accessibility and inclusion for disabled and neurodivergent people, as well as other underserved groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, people in rural areas, older adults, individuals experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage).

4. Healthcare education and training: Exploring effective approaches to teaching healthcare students and professionals, with a focus on immersive, interactive, and technology-mediated methods that enhance learning, skill acquisition, and clinical competence.

5. Media portrayals of mental illness: Analysing how mental health conditions, such as psychosis/schizophrenia, eating disorders, depression, and bipolar disorder, are represented across various media, including video games, films, TV shows, and social media, and the impact of these portrayals on public understanding and attitudes.

Selected Projects and Collaborations:

• Led a scoping review with University College London's Global Disability Innovation Hub as part of the AT2030 Programme, mapping conceptual definitions and measurement approaches used to assess the psychosocial impacts of assistive technologies for blind and partially sighted people;
• Conducted a mini-literature review on explainable AI during a Turing-funded research visit at the People and Technology Group, University College Cork (Ireland), and proposed a psychologically informed account of how differences in cognitive effort and motivation relate to trust and confidence in AI outputs;
• Contributed to an Innovate UK-funded project with Maudsley Learning to develop a novel, pragmatic, and user-informed quality assurance framework and evaluation process for digital mental health tools, enabling benchmarking of user experience, data security, and evidential robustness;
• Served as a member of the Race and Ethnicity Advisory Group at the Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, supporting the design of more inclusive and representative mental health research studies;
• Facilitated the setup, delivery, and follow-up of large, multi-centre NIHR-funded clinical trials in intensive care units across the UK as part of my research assistantship at the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre;
• Evaluated an online-delivered psychoeducational intervention with Maudsley Learning and King's College London, designed to support the self-efficacy, work engagement, and well-being of healthcare professionals returning to practice after a period of absence;
• Supported a survey-based study with Brunel University London, Dalhousie University (Canada), and other international partners identifying barriers and facilitators to the uptake of health technology assessment among stakeholders in the Canadian healthcare system, partially funded by a Dalhousie Research and Innovation International Seed Grant.

Professional Service and Peer Review:

• Peer reviewer for reputable journals and conferences spanning psychology, health, and digital technology, including Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (American Psychological Association), Digital Health (Sage), Journal of Advanced Nursing (Wiley), BMC Medical Education (Springer Nature), Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR Publications) and the European Congress of Psychology (European Federation of Psychologists' Associations). 
• Member of the Cyberpsychology Section of the British Psychological Society. Previously served as Postgraduate Representative (Careers, Industry, and Outreach) on the committee and Co-Editor of the Cyberpsychology Bulletin (2025), the Section’s newsletter and peer-reviewed outlet publishing updates, commentary, and short research articles on the psychology of digital technologies and online behaviour.

Publications

• Attoe, C., Szekely, R., Ortega Vega, M., Browne, E., Thomas, R., Kwan, C. W. T., Altchouler, P., De, A., Hariharan, N., Clay, G., Odoi, S., Cross, S., & Doe, A. (2026). The Mental Health Technology Assessment of Quality (MTAQ): Development of a novel quality assurance framework for digital mental health tools. Digital Health, 12, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076261428307
• Szekely, R. (2025). Commentary on ‘The Nature of Stigma: Toward a Sociological Engagement with Evolutionary Psychology.’ Deviant Behavior, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2025.2596788
• Bandukda, M., Xiao, L., Barbareschi, G., Oyier, P., Athiany, H., Szekely, R., Karuguti, W. M., Matheri, M. J., Austin, V., & Holloway, C. (2025). Toward a multi-layer framework to assess the quality of life impact of smartphones as assistive technology for people with sensory disabilities in Kenya. In Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’25) (Article 80, pp. 1–16). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3663547.3746352
• Szekely, R., Holloway, C., & Bandukda, M. (2025). Understanding the psychosocial impact of assistive technologies for people with visual impairments: Protocol for a scoping review. JMIR Research Protocols, 14, e65056. https://doi.org/10.2196/65056
• Szekely, R., Mason, O., Frohlich, D., & Barley, E. (2024). Acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary evaluation of an animated VR game for reducing mental health stigma in healthcare students and trainees: A mixed-method study. Mental Health and Digital Technologies, 1(2), 173-192. https://doi.org/10.1108/MHDT-03-2024-0010
• Szekely, R. (2024). A health psychology for all: The case of mental health in health research – Reflections from the DHP conference and ways forward. Health Psychology Update, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.53841/bpshpu.2024.33.1.36
• Szekely, R., Mazreku, S., Bignell, A., Fadel, C., Iannelli, H., Vega, M.O., O'Sullivan, O.P., Tiley, C., & Attoe, C. (2024). The efficacy of psychoeducation to improve personal skills and well-being among health-care professionals returning to clinical practice: a pilot pre-post study. The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, 19(2), 61-73. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMHTEP-11-2022-0089
• Szekely, R., Mason, O., Frohlich, D., & Barley, E. (2024). ‘It’s not everybody’s snapshot. It’s just an insight into that world’: A qualitative study of multiple perspectives towards understanding the mental health experience and addressing stigma in healthcare students through virtual reality. Digital Health, 10, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076231223801
• Farmer, G., & Szekely, R. (2024, January 29). The acceptability of serious games for the management of mental health: A brief review of published work. MultiPlay - The Network for Multidisciplinary Research on Digital Play and Games. https://multiplaynetwork.org/2024/01/29/the-acceptability-of-serious-games-for-the-management-of-mental-health-a-brief-review-of-published-work-by-george-farmer-raul-szekely/
• Szekely, R., Mason, O., Frohlich, D., & Barley, E. (2023). The use of virtual reality to reduce mental health stigma among healthcare and non-healthcare students: a systematic review. Behaviour & Information Technology, 44(10), 2116–2133. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2023.2232049
• Wranik, W. D., Szekely, R. R., Mayer, S., Hiligsmann, M., & Cheung, K. L. (2021). The most important facilitators and barriers to the use of Health Technology Assessment in Canada: a best–worst scaling approach. Journal of Medical Economics, 24(1), 846-856. https://doi.org/10.1080/13696998.2021.1946326

Supervision

• Dissertation supervision for the MSc Mental Health: Cultural Psychology and Psychiatry programme.