Dr Pamela Richards

Dr Pamela Richards is an experienced applied researcher and consultant working in high pressurised team decision-making in complex and hyperdynamic naturalistic environments. Pam focuses on Shared Mental Models, team metacognitions, situational awareness and attention. She is a Reader (Associate Professor) in High Pressurised Decision-making and Interoperability at the University of Central Lancashire and is the research strand lead for ‘Developing Expertise in Individuals and Teams’.

As a consultant and researcher, Pam advises across multiple domains, including Olympic and professional sports, military, cyber and emergency services. Pam is a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol), Associate Fellow (AFBPsS) and is qualified in Human Factors (Grad. CIEHF). Pam has held strategic positions in academia (Associate Head of School) and industry (advising on national and world committees; British Psychological Society and Naturalistic Decision-Making Association) leading hybrid academic, industry and research teams. Pam is a journal reviewer, Visiting Research Fellow and has organised and Chaired National conferences.

Bringing over 28 years of experience as an international, world qualified High-Performance Coach in field hockey. Pam integrates several decades of experience of working in elite sport through a multi-disciplinary lens. Pam has successfully secured six European medals as National Team Coach, including qualifying the national team for two World Cups and Commonwealth Games. In addition, Pam has five years of experience working as a sport scientist (Physiologist) preparing the National Women’s team for a Commonwealth Games (1998). Over the last 25 years, Pam has focused on the psychological aspects of team decision-making, teamwork and team metacognitions and has consulted with over five Olympic sports, world cup teams, in addition to other high-performance teams.

Pam has always had an interest, and fascination in complex decision-making, specifically team cognition, which underpins the contextualising of situational awareness and information within complex naturalistic team settings, through Shared Mental Models. Specialising in cognitive psychology and team social cognition, Pam’s research examines mental models, attention, tactical thinking and shared social and situational awareness. Since 2009, Pam has transferred her knowledge and experience of researching high-pressurised team decision-making in elite sport into multiple military contexts, cyber, emergency services and other high-pressurised domains.