Rhys Mantell

I am a postdoctoral research fellow within the Justice Health Research Program at UNSW. My work sits at the intersection of applied philosophy of science, phenomenology, digital health, and qualitative research with people at the margins of society (i.e., those in the justice system, experiencing homelessness, and/or navigating addiction, trauma, and persistent disadvantage). I like to design and evaluate complex interventions for these populations, combining qualitative depth and philosophical rigour with a practical commitment to translating knowledge into action.

My doctoral research, grounded in critical realist philosophy, examined how game-based cognitive assessment works, and fails, in complex institutional settings. This included designing, developing, and testing our own cognitive game for these settings, ASCAPE. My current postdoctoral role, funded through the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Violence Perpetration, studies the cognitive health profiles of people before the NSW Magistrates Courts, to better understand the barriers to more effective treatment and diversionary options for the cohort. Alongside this, I lead an AAG and Dementia Australia-funded program extending my doctoral work, and an emerging program of phenomenological research on recovery and reintegration for people leaving prison, funded by the Australian Human Rights Institute.

My hope over the next few years is to develop an applied critical phenomenology of addiction and reintegration after prison, grounded in the phenomenology of the possible and a commitment to ontological depth. The program aims to examine how a person's field of possibility narrows, and can reopen, after release, while holding in view the complex structural conditions that are involved in narrowing (and often complicate attempts at meaningful reintegration). This extends my critical realist formation into new theoretical territory, with a growing commitment to exploring the phenomenology of the possible.

Prior to academia, I spent over five years in strategy consulting at Deloitte and Australian Healthcare Associates, delivering national evaluations and policy projects across health and social care.