Alison Watts

Biography

Alison Watts is an Adjunct Lecturer at SCU Faculty of Health. Her PhD drew upon mental patient files to investigate mothers committed into Victorian mental institutions in the early twentieth century. Currently, Alison works in a cross-university collaboration research team with Charles Sturt University on the historic Mayday Hills Mental Hospital and Beechworth Cemetery. In addition, Alison is employed by the Southern Cross Postgraduate Association (SCPA) as a Project Officer supporting postgraduate students across all disciplines at SCU. Specifically, Alison coordinates the Advanced Skills Training program, delivering workshops by experts and maintains the SCPA's online and social media presence.

Research

Alison has researched and published on various aspects of past mental health practices in Australia. Key research areas are family secrets, genealogy, oral histories, heritage sites and artifacts.

An Award for Excellence was received for a recent article published in the International Journal for the Inclusive Museum. Her article in The Conversation was well received with 160,000 reads.

At present, Alison is a co-investigator with the Mayday Hills research group. Funded by a $40,000 Telematics Trust Grant, the project is a collaboration between Charles Sturt University and Southern Cross University that examines past mental health practices and the social history of the historic Mayday Hills Mental Hospital and Beechworth Cemetery. View the innovative Mayday Hills and Beechworth Cemetery Virtual Tour.

Alison maintains and develops content for the Mayday Hills Blog. This work communicates research findings, interesting stories, and contributions from the community about the history of mental health that has created an increased interest from a general yet international audience. View the Mayday Hills Blog.