James Killen is a final-year Ph.D. candidate whose research looks at the mental health of human rights defenders whom their government persecutes. In particular, his research focuses on the State's use of lawfare, its psychological effect, and methods used to address the social and mental health consequences of this persecution in groups of defenders whose civil and political rights have been restricted. In addition, his research explores the informal psychiatric support that can be given in geographically dispersed networks of defenders, who are otherwise isolated from their peers, and the impact of social and cultural factors in understanding mental ill-health and help-seeking behavior. His work explores these issues using the novel framework of Moral Injury, looking to understand the potential of this framework's utility in future understanding and support psychological trauma in human rights defenders.

James was previously a Captain in the British Army, working in mental health departments of the Defense Medical Services. He has been both a clinician in and commander of mental health departments in the UK, Germany, and Afghanistan operations. In addition to regimental duty in the 7th Armored Brigade (The Desert Rats), as an Operations Officer in 1 Armored Medical Regiment deploying personnel worldwide, and as a Press Officer responding to the Ebola pandemic and planning media coverage of the return of units from Germany to the UK.

He holds an LLM (Ebor) in International Human Rights Law and Practice. His dissertation compared the barriers to mental health care in military personnel and human rights defenders populations, drawing out common themes regarding attitudes to mental health, stigma, and organizational approaches employed to address these barriers. Outside of Parrhesia and research, James sits on the board of two national prison education charities: The Shannon Trust, which teaches literate prisoners to lead prisoners who can't read how to read;1 and the Prisoners' Education Trust, which offers distance learning courses to prisoners, up to and including bachelor degrees, so that on release they are better equipped to return to society.