The Freemasons Centre for Male Health and Wellbeing is pleased to welcome new PhD candidate Alex Brae and congratulate him on being awarded a Commonwealth Research Training Award and a FCMHW top-up scholarship to support his studies.

Alex completed a Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Honours) Degree in Psychology at Flinders University in 2018, achieving First Class Honours and a University Medal. Alex is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society.

With a passion for improving men’s mental health and wellbeing, Alex’s PhD is focusing on ways to improve health services to better meet the needs and preferences of men. Alex is using a signalling theory framework to investigate both how men express their health care needs and the response of healthcare providers with a particular focus on mental health professionals. “Only by examining these factors together can we achieve a complete understanding of male help-seeking behaviour,” Alex notes. Alex hopes that his research will generate recommendations that are more broadly focused on how help-seeking behaviour can be facilitated by all parties involved.

Alex has an interest in evolutionary psychology which is a theoretical approach to psychology that aims to explain how evolution has shaped the mind and behavior.

We wish Alex all the best for his PhD.