We are an interdisciplinary team with expertise in a range of areas including psychology, expedition planning, data science, software design, illustration and media production. You can find out more about the project and development teams below.
Project team
Dr Nathan Smith
Nathan is a Research Fellow in Psychology, Security and Trust at the University of Manchester (UoM). He is primarily interested in psychological and behavioural responses to extreme stress. In the past, Nathan has studied and worked with defence and security personnel, expeditioners, astronauts and space simulation participants, and remote fieldworkers. Prior to joining the UoM, Nathan was a Senior Research Scientist at the UK Ministry of Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Associate of the Alpine Club and is working towards his Mountain Leader award. Nathan currently supports a range of individuals and organisations in preparing and training people to operate in remote and high-risk environments.
Professor Emma Barrett
Emma is a Professor of Psychology, Security and Trust at the UoM and is the University’s strategic lead for Digital Trust and Security. Emma has a broad range of research interests, falling into two themes: psychology and security, and the psychology of extreme environments. Before joining UoM, she was Research to Practice Fellow at the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) at Lancaster University. Prior to that (from 2003-2015) Emma established and led a UK Government inter-departmental research unit that developed and applied behavioural, psychological, and social science research to a range of law enforcement, security, and defence issues.
Dr Caroline Jay
Caroline is a Reader in Empirically Sound Software Engineering in the School of Computer Science at the UoM. She is qualified as both a Psychologist (BA, CPsychol) and Computer Scientist (MSc, PhD), and undertakes research crossing these domains. She is Research Director of the Software Sustainabilty Institute, and a keen advocate for open and reproducible science. Caroline is a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, where she leads the 'Human-Centred Systems' health project. She leads the Manchester arm of the BBC Data Science Research Partnership, and the Human-Centred Design theme of the 'Digital Futures' initiative.
Mrs Shane Winser
Shane heads Geography Outdoors: the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) centre supporting field research, exploration and outdoor learning. She is a zoology graduate with a postgraduate diploma in Information Science. Shane chairs the BSI technical panel for British Standard BS 8848: 2014 the specification which benchmarks good practice for the provision of visits, fieldwork, expeditions and adventurous activities outside the United Kingdom. Shane has written and edited many books and articles on various aspects of expedition planning, is Editor of the Expedition Handbook (Profile Books, 2004) and one of the editors of the Oxford Handbook of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine (OUP, 2015).
Development team
University of Manchester Research IT
DRiFT was developed by the software team based in the Research IT unit at the UoM. The team led by Dr Adrian Harwood developed the infrastructure and logging and monitoring features of the tool. They also integrated all of the additional material produced as part of the project, including graphics and digital insights, in to the proof of concept digital system.
Coldhouse Collective
We worked with the outdoor production company Coldhouse Collective to identify and video interview experts for the DRiFT digital library. Coldhouse led on the logistics, interviewing and post-production of the video insight material that sits within the tool. They also advised on marketing and the campaign delivered around the launch of the DRiFT system.
Blair Frame Illustrations
All of the illustrations featured on the website are bespoke to DRiFT and were produced with illustrator and collagist Blair Frame.