Career summary

I have thirty years’ experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of health and human services for priority populations. I have held executive and senior leadership roles in service delivery, program development, system reform, research and public policy. Most of my career has been in the public sector in large-scale health and human services design and delivery, funding and public policy. Central to my career success has been my ability to develop strategy, engage stakeholders, communicate effectively and deliver outcomes. Whilst I am not a typical academic my experience has translated well to higher education particularly in the context of an enhanced policy focus on translational research and real world outcomes. In 2017 I graduated my PhD titled Applying collective impact to improve health services for Aboriginal people in rural and remote communities. My thesis included nine publications and won the Rita and John Cornforth Medal for PhD achievement. I began publishing in the peer reviewed literature in 2016 and have more than 60 research outputs. According to Google scholar I have 781 citations and i10 index of 12 and a h index of 13. Altmetric rates ten of my papers in the top 5% of all research output. All of my research is high impact and translational and has been able to achieve policy and funding change in rural/remote Aboriginal oral health services and Aboriginal workforce development in NSW and shape fluoride varnish practice nationally.

Research Impact:

Since joining the team at Macquarie University in late 2019, I have been an Investigator on grants totalling $7.9m to co-design, deliver and evaluate services with priority populations including new approaches to oral health, allied health, hearing, workforce and cardiovascular disease. All of my research includes multidisciplinary researchers, students and community members. One of my high impact papers is a result of a global collaboration about Atrial Fibrillation. Published in Circulation, this paper has 63 authors and has been cited by 445. I co-lead the international Indigenous sub-group of the collaboration. Another paper, published in the Australian Dental Journal, is a costing study where our multidisciplinary team compared a Fly in Fly out model of dental service delivery and a second model developed through co-design. This paper enabled policy and funding change in NSW.

Examples of high impact research

1.Vocational education project: Aboriginal people typically have poor completion rates in vocational education (~30%), yet employment of Aboriginal people in healthcare improves the cultural competence of those services. In this research we co-designed, implemented and evaluated a culturally safe model of vocation education for Aboriginal students, whereby > 500 vocational education qualifications have been awarded to Aboriginal scholars since 2015 with a 93% completion rate with qualifications awarded in a range of healthcare para-professions.

2.Remote Indigenous oral health project: Our study evaluated using co-design methods a remote dental program for Aboriginal people. This remote dental service, now nationally accredited, resulted in a reduction in tooth decay, plaque and gingivitis (gum disease). We also found an increase in positive oral hygiene behaviour including tooth brushing, consumption of drinking water and reduced consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

3.Detecting and treating atrial fibrillation (AF): We established a culturally safe, acceptable and feasible approach to community screening for AF in Aboriginal people. In this study we found that Aboriginal people should be screened for AF ten years earlier than currently recommended in international guidelines. We are now part of an international collaboration to change the guidelines and to embed earlier screening (and treatment) into primary care.