CV and Career

Dr Simon Harold Walker is a suicidologist, occupational-health researcher, historian and public-engagement practitioner at the University of Glasgow. His work connects suicide prevention, work and health, evidence synthesis, medical history and the practical use of research.

He is a Medical Research Foundation Mid-Career Fellowship awardee, Research Associate in Public Health and Research Lead within the University of Glasgow’s Healthy Working Lives Group. Since 2021, he has led or co-led work supported by more than £677,000 in research awards.

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Current appointments

Professional profile

Simon specialises in occupational health, suicidology, workplace distress and employment retention. His work spans qualitative and mixed methods, evidence synthesis, intervention development, historical research, teaching, staff leadership, postgraduate supervision, public engagement and policy translation.

His current research examines suicidal crises among nurses, involuntary job loss among older workers, long-term health conditions and work, veteran mental health, and practical responses when people disclose suicidal distress.

Selected research leadership

RESUME

Lead researcher, £338,304 Medical Research Foundation Fellowship. Research into Scottish nursing Suicide and Mental health Experiences combines official-record analysis, anonymous survey research and oral history to understand how nurses experience and narrate suicidal crises and how workplaces can respond more effectively. Visit RESUME.

Veteran mental health evidence synthesis

Project Lead, Complex Reviews Synthesis Unit. Leads a MOD/NIHR systematic review of modifiable factors associated with positive mental health among serving personnel, reservists and veterans, including protocol delivery, PPIE, screening, appraisal, reproducible methods and publication planning.

POWER

Research Lead, £135,000 NIHR Work and Health Development Award. A systematic evidence-synthesis programme examining health-related and non-health-related factors associated with involuntary job loss among workers aged 50 and older, alongside database mapping and predictive-method development.

Long COVID and work

Research Lead, £151,000 multinational study. Mixed-methods research across the UK, Latin America and India examining long COVID, sickness absence, work productivity, return to work and organisational support.

Working for a Healthy Economy

Research Lead, Ayrshire service evaluation, 2023 to 2027. A longitudinal mixed-methods evaluation of work-and-health support involving service data, participant and staff research, stakeholder engagement and staged reporting.

SOLVE

Principal investigator and programme lead. SOLVE is a brief, practical framework for non-clinical first responses when someone discloses suicidal distress. The programme brings together evidence, lived experience, organisational involvement and consensus development. Explore SOLVE.

Career history

• Lecturer, Tutor and Dissertation Supervisor, University of Strathclyde, 2015 to 2021. Undergraduate and postgraduate teaching across medical and social history, sociology, politics, law and research methods.
• Lecturer and Tutor in Social Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, 2020 to 2021. Teaching and assessment in sociology, criminology and research methods.
• Researcher, Fares4Free veteran-support evaluation, 2020.
• Researcher and Events Manager, Scottish Parliament Festival of Politics, 2017 to 2019.
• Researcher and Presenter, Feeding Under Fire, 2016 to 2019. A digital public-history project exploring food, health and medicine during the First World War.
• Researcher, Glasgow Museums, 2012.

Teaching and supervision

• Approximately twelve years of higher-education teaching and professional-training experience.
• First supervisor for a University of Glasgow PhD from May 2026, alongside previous undergraduate and Master’s dissertation supervision.
• Curriculum, assessment and digital-content development for the Diploma in Occupational Medicine and Diploma in Health Practice.
• Member of the MPH Learning and Teaching Board, contributing to Master’s teaching and assessment.
• Development of medical-student teaching on work, mental health and suicide prevention.
• Teaching across research methods, sociology, public health, occupational health, medical humanities, history of medicine and suicide prevention.

Editorial work, professional service and public engagement

• Associate Editor, Occupational Medicine, Oxford University Press and the Society of Occupational Medicine.
• Secretary, Scottish Society of Occupational Medicine Committee, 2026 to present.
• Reviewer, NIHR Work and Health funding committee.
• Member, Scottish Occupational Health Action Group, and adviser to Scottish Hazards on mental health, suicide prevention and occupational health.
• Co-founder, Occupational Health Suicide Prevention and Research Network.
• Named contributor to NHS England’s Working Together to Prevent Suicide in the NHS Workforce toolkit.
• Public scholarship published in Time, The Independent and The Conversation.
• Invited lectures and professional presentations for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, the Society of Occupational Medicine, Scottish Hazards, Health Partners and international academic audiences.

Education and professional recognition

Methods and expertise

• Research: qualitative interviewing, focus groups, reflexive thematic analysis, narrative and oral-history methods, mixed methods, surveys, intervention development and implementation evaluation.
• Evidence synthesis: systematic reviews, protocol development, database searching, screening and extraction workflows, quality appraisal and transparent AI-assisted verification.
• Leadership: grant development, project governance, staff line management, postgraduate supervision, stakeholder partnerships, PPIE and publication planning.
• Digital education and engagement: accessible online learning, multimedia production, public-history projects and research communication.

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Research, publications and contact

Professional enquiries: simon.walker@glasgow.ac.uk

Career information last updated September 2026.