Academic advisors

Dr. Stephen Benton
B.Sc. (hons) Ph.D (Lond) M.I.O.A., C.Psychol.  C.Sci. 
Founder of the first in UK Business Psychology Centre (bpc), and Master Programme in Business Psychology, The University of Westminster

After graduating from Brunel University in 1978 with a degree in Psychology, Stephen was awarded a Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) scholarship to study the psychophysical properties of low frequency noise, at Chelsea College, University of London.  On completion of his PhD studies and  post doctoral research in 1985, he accepted a postdoctoral research fellowship at University College London to investigate aspects of vision psychophysics.

In 1989 Stephen took up a position as lecturer in Life Sciences at the University of Westminster. As Director of the Human Factors Research Group (1992-2001), within the Department of Psychology, he was responsible for several strands of funded research which included; Organisational Diagnostics, Human Computer Interactions, Team Performance, Selective Attention, Psychophysical properties of driving lens, anti-glare filters and the impact of Low Frequency Noise on individuals’ quality of life.  During this time Stephen spent several years researching and lecturing in Human Information Processing as applied to the improvement of individuals' quality of life and performance, especially within an organisational context. This work provided the platform for his creation in 1997 of the first Business Psychology Postgraduate programme, which continues to be the leading programme of its kind in the UK.

In 2001 Stephen was appointed as founding Director of the Business Psychology Centre (2001-2017) at the University of Westminster,  which continues to have a distinguished record of research awards, consultancy projects, Knowledge Transfer Partnership contracts and the academic dissemination of Business Psychology in the UK, Indonesia. Russia, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

In 2009, Stephen was awarded the title of Professor of Business Psychology - the first in the UK.  He left the university in 2017 and is currently working as an independent consultant and academic adviser.

Dr Warren Thorngate, emeritus professor of psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Warren Thorngate is an emeritus professor of psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Since receiving his PhD in social and mathematical psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1971, he has pursued research in four areas: human decision making, social psychology, research methods, and statistics. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of California, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Surrey, St. Petersburg University, La Trobe University (Australia), Tehran University, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He has also taught organizational behaviour and decision making in Carleton University’s School of Business. 

Professor Thorngate is best known for his work on the pathologies of contests and competitions, the economics of attention, and social motivation. He is also the creator of Ordinal Pattern Analysis, an evidential statistics procedure for measuring prediction-observation fit. His applied work includes several evaluation research projects to improve the grant adjudication processes of government research funding agencies. His current work explores the ecology of problems and the limits of time.

Dr Warren Thorngate - CV

Stephen C. Armstrong

Professor of Innovation at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. He is also a visiting professor in the business psychology centre at the University of Westminster 
 

Areas of Practice and Research:

Management of Innovation, Applying Innovation, Business Transformation and Change Management, Advanced Manufacturing Systems, Engineering and Product Development Management, Strategic Operations and Production Management, Process and Project Management, Strategic and Systems Thinking, Management Consulting, Engineering Education, and History and Philosophy of Engineering

Stephen Armstrong is Canadian/British citizen and is a Professor of Innovation, Entrepreneur, Professional Engineer, Certified Management Consultant, and Broadcaster.  For over 25 years he has led senior executive teams in a variety of complex business transformation initiatives starting in the tier 1 aerospace and defense industry in Canada, USA and UK and spreading to other industry sectors in media, manufacturing, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and SME’s.  He served a five year higher technical apprenticeship in aeronautical manufacturing engineering with Bombardier Aerospace-Belfast, N Ireland.  He attended the South Eastern Regional College-Lisburn in Northern Ireland   and earned the City and Guilds London Institute Full Technological Cert Diploma in Mechanical & Production Engineering qualifying as a Manufacturing Engineer - Tool Development.   He then earned a BSc Hons Mechanical Engineering degree (CNAA) at the London Polytechnic-University of Westminster and qualified as a Chartered Mechanical Engineer through the Institution of Mechanical Engineers UK in 1984.  He specialized in advanced aerospace composite materials and computer integrated manufacturing.  He was licensed as a Professional Engineer in Ontario, Canada in 1984.  In 1992 he qualified as a Certified Management Consultant while with KPMG Toronto specializing in operations management and advanced manufacturing systems.  In 1993 he founded AMGImanagement.com a management consultancy.  He published his first book with Cambridge University Press in 2001.  In 2005 he was awarded the diploma of fellowship from the City and Guilds London Institute. He earned an MA in the history and philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto in 2009.  In 2010 he was appointed as Adjunct Lecturer in the department of mechanical and Industrial engineering at the University of Toronto. In 2014 he was appointed Professor of Innovation in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto teaching 5 graduate courses in Innovation, Strategic Change,  Operations and Production Management and Organizational Design. He is a visiting professor to the Business Psychology Centre at the University of Westminster, London and an academic advisor to the business psychology department at the National Research University, Higher school of economics, Moscow.  He has delivered seminars, lectures and presentation in India, UAE, Singapore, China, Ireland, UK, Russia and Crimea. He runs a radio show “Innovation Nation” in Toronto. 

Personal Web Site: http://amgimanagement.com/stephen-c-armstrong/

List of Publications: http://amgimanagement.com/publications-2/

Dr Kathryn Waddington, PhD, Chartered Psychologist

Course Leader MSc Business Psychology, University of Westminster
Reader in Work and Organizational Psychology
Visiting Senior Fellow, Darwin International Institute for the Study of Compassion

Kathryn is Course Leader for the flagship MSc Business Psychology at the University of Westminster, which was established by Professor Stephen Benton in 1988 as the first postgraduate business psychology course in Europe. She is a Chartered Psychologist, Member of the Association of Business Psychology, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and Principal Fellow of The Higher Education Academy. She has a background in nursing and healthcare, and is a Visiting Senior Fellow with the Darwin International Institute for the Study of Compassion (DIISC). DIISC is named after Charles Darwin, and its core mission is to support and develop a new generation of scholars and future leaders with a deeper understanding of compassion. Kathryn is particularly interested in exploring how a deeper understanding of compassion can offer fresh insights into business psychology practice. Her current research and scholarship explores the use of interpretive ethnography as a means of revealing the ‘dark side’ of academic life, and the role of compassion in promoting and sustaining healthy organisational cultures and leadership practices.