Dr Walsan is an early career researcher at the Centre for Health Services and Safety Research at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation. Her research focuses on the use of large-scale linked health datasets, health economics, spatial analysis, and both qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate new models of care, with a strong commitment to improving equity in health outcomes and costs. She has led national and interdisciplinary projects examining quality and safety outcomes, financial toxicity, virtual care, cancer outcomes. Her published work, 49 research outputs, including 25 peer-reviewed articles (15 as first author) has had national and international impact. She has secured over $1.8 million in funding as Chief Investigator and has participated in and led commissioned work that informed strategic decisions in government health sectors. She also has extensive experience using large, linked datasets across NSW, Victoria, and Queensland to evaluate health service and population health outcomes using complex statistical modelling.

She currently leads coordination and data analysis for the NHMRC Smarter Hospitals Partnership Project, a national evaluation of virtual care integration. In this role, she has overseen multiple data linkage applications and analyses and established Communities of Practice and a national steering committee with policymakers and consumer representatives. Dr Walsan also led a Medibank-funded national study on the relationship between out-of-pocket costs and care quality across four surgical procedures. Her research interests centre on improving equity in health outcomes, with a focus on cancer, chronic conditions, virtual healthcare, health economics, and the evaluation of innovative models of care. She is open to supervising PhD students and early career researchers in these areas, and welcomes opportunities to collaborate with clinicians, policymakers, health economists, and data scientists on projects that address pressing health system challenges. In addition, she has expertise in using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial methods to identify at-risk populations to aid in health planning and practice. She actively contributes to research leadership and capacity building through student supervision, ethics committee service, peer mentorship, and institutional engagement. In recognition of her sustained effort and contributions, she received the Faculty ECR Unsung Hero Award in 2023.