Psychology Matters: 'I will be forever grateful I have had the opportunity to work with some amazing people doing amazing things'

Who are you?

I am Bec McKeown, I run a company called Mind Science and work as a consultant to clients in the defence and security sectors.

What do you do?

As a contractor, I have a range of roles which include working on research programmes and teaching in the UK defence sector. I am also developing a range of cybersecurity CPD programmes based on research I have done in defence.

What has been your path to get to your current role?

A long and convoluted one – none of which was planned!  I decided on a career change in 2004 and went to Cranfield to do a MSc in Applied Psychology. My original plan was to work as an organisational change consultant but that changed when I discovered that Cranfield specialised in human factors in aviation.

I found the work really interesting and got a job as a research fellow at the university working on aircraft cabin safety.  A few years later I was asked to work on a defence project looking at understanding training delivery, and then I carried on working on MoD research projects until I left in 2019 to set up my own business.

Since then, I have continued with my MoD research projects and have started working in cybersecurity. I did an 18-month stint at a tech start-up as director of human science and realised that everything I had learned from my MOD research was equally useful for people working in incident response in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is a relatively new sector, so there are not too many of us around and it's great to be able to bring psychology to a wider audience.

What would you like the impact of your work to be?

My mission is to use psychology to demonstrate how more efficient, effective, and enjoyable work life can be when you design businesses around the way people work.  

In 10 words or less, what message would you like to send to anyone interested in defence and security psychology?

Join the Defence and Security Psychology Section and see what's on offer! 

If you could change anything about your field of psychology, what would it be?

That the wider world would better appreciate our profession.  We have a lot to offer but are often overlooked in favour of the next new technology thing.

Tell us a funny or unusual thing that has happened to you in your career?

Working in defence has given me the opportunity to travel and to experience things that the general public can't! Some notable moments include working on a submarine, going on exercise with the US Army in the Mojave Desert and getting cold and soaking wet observing training on a Royal Navy warship in the English Channel.  

No two days are ever the same and I will be forever grateful I have had the opportunity to work with some amazing people doing amazing things.

Get involved

We want to hear your career stories. Complete this questionnaire to share your career story.