Dr Jacks Bennett is a chartered psychologist and public health researcher interested in mental wellbeing in higher education.  Jacks’ research is focused on prevalence and trends in student wellbeing as well as health, social and educational factors related to both wellbeing, mental health disclosure, and student outcomes. That includes health and social inequalities (and their intersections) such as disability, gender, socio-economic status and ethnic background. Jacks is currently developing a national cohort study tracking student wellbeing across the academic cycle. 

Jacks is an NIHR School for Public Health Launching Fellow (2024-26), was previously an ESRC Postdoc Fellow (2023-24), but has worked as a Senior Research Associate at University of Bristol since 2017. Her doctoral work examined the impact of a significant investment in new student wellbeing support services in 2018. It was one of the first studies of its kind to investigate impact and effectiveness of non-clinical advisory support for student populations.

Between 2018 and 2022 Jacks also analysed and reported on the University of Bristol annual Student Wellbeing Survey, helping to inform mental health strategy and policy. She has also worked with Smarten - a UKRI-funded national student mental health research network - to develop national guidance for measuring mental health and wellbeing in student cohorts.

Keywords: student wellbeing, student support interventions, student mental health

Jacks is part of several Bristol research groups: The Elizabeth Blackwell Mental Health in Young People Research Initiative, Centre for Academic Mental Health, Bristol’s Suicide and Self Harm Research group, and the Behavioural Genetics Research group.

She is a member of SMaRteN, a national research network funded by UK Research and Innovation, led by King's College London, focusing on student mental health in higher education.

NIHR SPHR Mentors: Profs Rona Campbell and Claire Haworth, University of Bristol

Current supervisor: Dr Judi Kidger, University of Bristol

PhD supervisors (2018-2022): Prof D Gunnell, Prof Claire Haworth, Dr Judi Kidger, University of Bristol