Jemma King

Jemma Bridget King is an Australian behavioural scientist. Having earned her PhD in the field, she now works as a research fellow at University of Queensland, focusing human performance under stress. King's research initially focused on psychological preparedness of Australian soldiers facing combat. The work has informed training models used by Special forces of Australia and, later, the Australian Olympic team. King's research has been published by Australian Army Journal and Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.

Education
King completed two bachelor degrees at the University of Queensland, a Bachelor of Psychology in 2007-2011 and a Bachelor of Business Management in 2011-2012. She then completed a PhD in Human Behaviour, supervised by Prof Neal Ashkanasy, at the University of Queensland Business School. Her thesis, "Emotional intelligence and its effects on biomarkers of workplace stress" examined ways soldiers from Australia's 2nd Commando Regiment may psychologically prepare for high-stress conditions of combat.

Career
The publication of King's PhD thesis led to a two year project from 2015, for Department of Defence, collaborating with Ashkanasy and the organisational psychologist Professor Nicole Gillespie: "Emotional Intelligence: A Pre-emptive Approach to Stress Management."

King's later academic projects have included contributing to Mission Critical Team Summit at Wharton Business School. While continuing her research at UQ, King lectures at University of Sydney Business School. Her clinical and training work has extended from special forces operators to athletes, and more recently, to professional environments. In 2018, King was invited by John Bertrand and Lieutenant General Rick Burr to facilitate Operation Resilience, a collaboration between Swimming Australia and the Australian Army. The aim was to enable athletes to regulate stress reactions in order to optimise performance at the Olympics. In the program, 180 athletes and coaches trained with soldiers at the Special Operations Training and Education Centre. King was invited to discuss her findings from the program at the 2019 Australian Army Advanced Leadership Seminar. In 2020, King served with Olympic rower Kim Brennan and Sports Commissioner Kurt Fearnley on the Gold Medal Ready program of the Australian Institute of Sport,. King's peer-reviewed research articles have largely been on the theme of how emotional intelligence affects the human experience of stress, as measured by cortisol, and how this affects human performance.

Since 2017, these papers have focused more on how variations of EI, shaped by stress and sleep levels, can affect performance in specific work environments, such as academic and corporate settings. A 2022 study, conducted with Nadia Fox and discussed in Forbes, found that for every 45 minutes of sleep debt accumulated would see a 5-10% decline in performance on tasks requiring mental control the following day. A 2023 study conducted by King with the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology found that purpose, acknowledgement, value-alignment and autonomy are strong predictors of employee wellbeing. Her research showed that “Organisational justice” will also shape outcomes, such as whether resources are distributed fairly for staff, and if there is a clear path for promotion.

Awards and recognition
In 2015, King was awarded the 2015 Army Research Scheme by Director of Research Strategic Plans – Australian Army HQ. Her joint presentation "Bringing physiology back into IO Psychology" was named Best Paper at the Australian Psychological Society's 12th Industrial and Organisational Psychology Conference in 2017.