Contact Dr Natalie Clewley
- Tel: +44 (0) 1234 864539
- Email: natalie.clewley@cranfield.ac.uk
- ORCID
Background
Dr Natalie Clewley is Senior Lecturer in Socio-Technical Systems and Head of the Complex Systems Group within the Centre for Defence and Security Management and Informatics, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cranfield University. She leads the group integrating Systems Thinking and Systems Engineering approaches in teaching, research and consultancy activities to address complex socio technical “wicked” problems across a multitude of sectors.
Key capability areas: Systems Thinking; Complex Systems; Planning Effective Systems Interventions and Research; Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; Human–AI Collaboration; Decision Making and Decision Support.
Application Areas: Defence and Security; Cyber Security; Public Health.
Research opportunities
Her research interests lie at the socio-technical interface, exploring how human thinking approaches—such as Systems Thinking tools like Soft Systems Methodology, the Viable System Model, System Dynamics and Critical Systems Heuristics—and machine technologies—including Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining, and Information Fusion—shape human–machine collaboration in high complexity decision making environments. She is also experienced in the effective design and development of systems interventions and research projects in complex environments, promoting a holistic systems approach to appreciating the complexity inherent in complex social systems. Working within an interdisciplinary team spanning cognitive psychology, computer science, AI, systems thinking, and systems engineering, she applies these approaches to domains such as defence and security, cyber security, finance, organisational resilience, and public health.
Natalie earned her PhD in Information Systems Research from Brunel University London in 2011, where her doctoral thesis investigated the use of data mining to improve understanding of human learning in digital environments. As a Research Fellow in Cyber Security, she advanced the application of AI, machine learning, and information fusion to enhance decision making in cyberspace and complex operational contexts, collaborating with partners including UCL, the University of Essex, Ministry of Defence, Dstl, Roke Manor Research, Airbus, the Office for National Statistics, the Bank of England, and HMRC.
Since joining Cranfield in 2017, she has led and contributed to competitively funded research projects, including:
- EPSRC – Copacetic Smartening of Data for Human like Computing (Principal Investigator) – £300k, developing intelligent cognitive training agents for complex environments such as cyber security and explosive ordnance disposal.
- NCSC – EPSAI (Principal Investigator) – £29k, establishing evidence based principles for secure artificial intelligence.
- UKPRP – GroundsWell (Co Investigator) – £7.12 M, applying a systems approach to maximise health and wellbeing benefits from urban green and blue spaces.
- HMG – UKGov Collective Intelligence: ‘Brains Trusts as a Service’ (Co Investigator) – £101k.
Current activities
Natalie's current activities contribute to teaching, research and consultancy across the Complex Systems group. She was instrumental in the development of the Level 7 Systems Thinking Practice Apprenticeship and MSc, shaping its design and delivery during her tenure as Course Director 2022-2024. She teaches across many of the modules on the current course and currently leads the following modules: Modelling Social Systems, Systems Practice and Systems Intervention Planning. Alongside this, she has extensive experience in defence-related education, teaching on the Higher Command and Staff Course, Intermediate Command and Staff Course and Managing Defence in the Wider Security Context, as well as delivering systems thinking short courses to different organisations. Her teaching enables senior leaders to apply systemic approaches to strategic and operational challenges.
Her current research is focused around applying systems approaches in Public Health as a Co-Invesigator in the £7.1m UKPRP GroundsWell consortium. She is a journal reviewer for several journals within her areas of expertise and is currently organising a Special Issue in 'Systems Thinking for Real-World Problem Solving' for the MDPI Systems Journal. She supervises and examines PhD students within her areas of interest and expertise: Systems Thinking, Complex Systems, Cyber Security, Deception Detection.
She is recognised for her expertise in systems pedagogy, complex decision making environments and educational innovation. She was recently invited to give a talk at the Civil Service Special Interest Group in Systems Thinking and has presented to the AI and Systems Thinking Networks for the Department of Education.
Clients
Ministry of Defence (MoD)
Dstl
Roke Manor Research Ltd
Airbus
Bank of England
Janet
Bioss International
Office for National Statistics (ONS)
HMRC
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Hunter RF, Cleland C, Wang R, O’Neill C, Mullineaux S, .... (2025). Investigating the long-term public health and co-benefit impacts of an urban greenway intervention in the UK: a natural experiment evaluation – study protocol. BMJ Open, 15(7)
- Hunter R, Garcia L, Clewley N, Hafezi M & Hilton J. (2023). 5 year public health impacts of an urban greenway, Belfast, Northern Ireland: Causal Loop Diagram (Abstract no diagram). European Journal of Public Health, 33(Supplement 2)
- Hunter RF, Rodgers SE & Hilton J. (2022). GroundsWell: Community-engaged and data-informed systems transformation of Urban Green and Blue Space for population health – a new initiative. Wellcome Open Research, 7(237)
- Ioannou G, Louvieris P & Clewley N. (2019). A Markov multi-phase transferable belief model for cyber situational awareness. IEEE Access, 7
- Louvieris P, Clewley N & Liu X. (2013). Effects-based feature identification for network intrusion detection. Neurocomputing, 121
- Clewley N, Chen SY & Liu X. (2011). Mining learning preferences in web-based instruction: Holists vs. Serialists. Educational Technology and Society, 14(4)
- Clewley N, Chen SY & Liu X. (2010). Cognitive styles and search engine preferences. Journal of Documentation, 66(4)
- Clewley N, Chen SY & Liu X. (2009). Evaluation of the credibility of internet shopping in the UK. Online Information Review, 33(4)
Conference Papers
- Forsyth T, Clewley N & Asena A. (2023). The tetrahedron: a framework for developing coherent strategy for complex environments
- Clewley N, Forsyth T, Dodd L & Hilton J. (2022). A framework for systems thinking practice
- Clewley N, Dodd L, Smy V, Witheridge A & Louvieris P. (2019). Eliciting expert knowledge to inform training design
- Mepham K, Louvieris P, Ghinea G & Clewley N. (2014). Dynamic cyber-incident response
- Lewis R, Louvieris P, Abbott P, Clewley N & Jones K. (2014). Cybersecurity information sharing: A framework for information security management in UK SME supply chains
- Ioannou G, Louvieris P, Clewley N & Powell G. (2013). A Markov multi-phase transferable belief model: An application for predicting data exfiltration APTs
- Clewley N, Chen SY & Liu X. (2009). Cognitive styles and web-based instruction: Field dependent/independent vs. Holist/Serialist
- Clewley N, Asena A & Forsyth T. Distinctions as Metacognitive Choices in Systems Thinking
- Hilton J & Clewley N. Requirements to be met by a systems approach to organisational governance
- Hilton J, Clewley N, Forsyth T & Dodd L. Developing a shared understanding as a foundation for collaborative thinking