Dr Colleen Cheek conducts research at the Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, Australian Institute of Healthcare Innovation, at Macquarie University. Dr Cheek has broad interdisciplinary expertise in education and training in medicine and nursing, community and acute health care systems development, workforce, information systems and project management.  Colleen uses a range of methods to study problems with a focus on actionable outcomes, and draws from a foundation of over 20 years professional experience in the healthcare sector to identify innovative solutions that are feasible, add value for clinicians, empower consumers, and are sustainable. 

As a rural scholar, Dr Cheek attracted > $3.82M in funding.  Dr Cheek's work reflects the breadth of her knowledge and experience - in digital health interventions, rural health workforce strategy and rural health service delivery models including early intervention for children with autism. Dr Cheek has led large multi-stakeholder projects in eHealth, in population health, in controlled and disaster settings.  In her current role, Dr Cheek manages a comprehensive experience-based codesign project, working with consumers and health care providers to develop or adapt metropolitan emergency department care for underserved patient cohorts – culturally and linguistically diverse, adults living with disability, adults with mental illness, older adults, and Indigenous Australians. 

Over her health professional career, Dr Cheek gained comprehensive perioperative nursing experience and held clinical nurse specialist and management roles working within the specialties of cardiothoracics, vascular, gynae and obstetrics, neurosurgery, biliary and general, urology, burns, plastics, head and neck and ENT, orthopaedics, trauma, organ harvest and transplantation, in metropolitan and rural, private and public settings in Australia, New Zealand and England. Within health professional education, Dr Cheek managed rural and remote General Practice education and workforce support programs, and as a senior executive with a multi-site regional health service, was responsible for education and training of over 1000 nurses.