Meet the team

Professor John Hurley

Co-Theme Leader & Professor

John's teaching and research activities are predominantly focused on mental health, emotional intelligence, health education and health workforce issues. Methodologies include qualitative approaches such as critical realism, phenomenology and social constructionism, as well as realistic evaluation.

Professor Marie Hutchinson

Co-Theme Leader & Professor

Professor Hutchinson is experienced in a range of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods and has led and supervised large mixed-method and data linkage studies. She currently leads a number of industry-partnered research projects, and has extensive experience in conducting research in clinical settings.

Professor Andrew Cashin

Professor

Dr Cashin's research focus is autism and advanced practice nursing, he has published widely on these research areas. Andrew is a Fellow of the Australian College of Nurse Practitioners, Australian College of Mental Health Nurses and the Australian College of Nursing. He is a life member of the Australian College of Nurse Practitioners. He is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney.

Professor Jennene Greenhill

Professor

As a nurse leader, Jennene is passionate about socially accountable health professional education and research that benefits communities, especially disadvantaged populations. Her international research profile encompasses rural health workforce, transformative learning, and health service improvement in underserved communities.

Professor Brenda Happell

Professor

Professor Happell's research interests include: consumer participation in mental health services, and physical health of people experiencing mental illness.

Professor Peter Hassmen

Professor

Passionate about sport, exercise, and performance psychology; researched among other things: relationships between physical activity/inactivity and mental health including depression and anxiety syndromes, the overtraining/under-recovery syndrome in athletes, and burnout in athletes, coaches, and in the workplace. This has resulted in more than 150 research articles and ten books.

Professor Mark Hughes

Professor

Professor Mark Hughes's research centres on ageing and the delivery of health and aged care services to older people. He has previously researched conflict and violence in care-giving relationships, dementia and care-giving, older people's transitions through health and community care systems, and educational initiatives to facilitate reflective practice with older people. He has also published broadly on social work education, social work organisations and the impact of social work research.

Associate Professor Jacqui Yoxall

Chair of Discipline (Allied Health and Midwifery)

Dr Yoxall has held full registration as a psychologist since 1997 and has practiced in public health, private business and industry and in private practice. Dr Yoxall has been a member of the Australian Psychological Society for 23 years. Dr Yoxall obtained her PhD in 2012. She has held a part time academic role in teaching, research and management since 2012.

Associate Professor Richard Lakeman

Associate Professor

Richard has a diverse portfolio of research interests. Projects have included how people deal with trauma, mental health programme evaluation, mental health recovery, stigma and discrimination, how people recover from suicidal crisis, and surveys relating to professional competency in psychotherapy.

Associate Professor Gail Moloney

Associate Professor

Gail's research interests fall broadly in the area of social and community psychology with particular interest in drawing from theory to understand and design strategies and interventions for pressing social and health issues. Research interests include: social representations theory, social identity theory, organ donation, transplantation and registration on the Australian Organ Donor Register (AODR), blood donation, social understandings of dementia....

Dr Joanne Bradbury

Senior Lecturer

Most of my research work is in multi-disciplinary research collaborations, which have collectively sought $3.5M in income, netting almost one million dollars for research. A career highlight is a publication that reviews the evidence for the theory that the modern human brain would not have evolved without the inclusion of seafood in the diet. Another was a multi-agency collaboration that resulted in a publication in the MJA and an expert appearance before a Federal Senate committee hearing.

Dr Eric Brymer

Senior Lecturer

Eric is interested in performance, wellbeing and learning as it relates to psychological processes and outcomes. He is particularly focused on the human-nature relationship, adventure and extreme environments. He specialises in qualitative and mixed methods research.

Dr Desiree Kozlowski

Senior Lecturer

Experienced researcher and multidisciplinary collaborator with a focus on strengths-based interventions for building personal resources to support positive mental health and psychological wellbeing.

Dr Liz Reimer

Senior Lecturer

Liz’s research interests include family work, relational practice in family work and men’s behavior change programs, prevention and early intervention dimensions of the child wellbeing continuum (including community development approaches to child protection, creating communities in which children can thrive, and social capital and child welfare.

Dr Erica Russ

Senior Lecturer

Dr Russ' research has examined social work workforce readiness and wellbeing with a focus on worker resilience. Recent research has included research that reflects children's voice and examination of social work education, particularly fieldwork. Dr Russ' research interests focus on collaborative research using qualitative methodology with an applied focus.

Dr Louise Whitaker

Senior Lecturer

Dr Whitaker's research examines social work practice with people who are impacted by mental distress. Most recently the focus has been both transformative mental health practice and the social inclusion of women from refugee backgrounds. Dr Whitaker is particularly interested in practice based research and research methodologies capturing practice wisdom.

Dr Peter James

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Peter has acquired methodological knowledge and skills in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method research, systematic reviews, public health, and health service research. To date he has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals and four book chapters and has peer-reviewed for over 30 international reputable journals. His research interests include 1) health and health services research among survivors of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, 2) traditional and c

Dr Kachina Allen

Lecturer

Kachina'a research interests are varied and past research has included work on perception and processing (e.g. auditory, visual), attention, neuroimaging, and psychophysics.

Dr Jena Buchan

Lecturer

Jena has a track record in using exercise as a means of supporting physical and psychosocial wellbeing in individuals during and after cancer treatment, as well as supporting university students on placement and in their own wellbeing. She is currently further expanding her further into the areas of goal setting and habit formation in health behaviours.

Dr Diarmuid Hurley

Lecturer

Dr. Hurley's research interests include sport, exercise, and performance psychology, health psychology, organisational psychology and mental health promotion and prevention in communities. One of the highlights of his career so far was working on the multi-million dollar "Ahead of the Game" mental health promotion and prevention grant, funded by the Movember Foundation in partnership with major sporting and industry partners, such as the Black dog Institute.

Dr Mary-Anne Kate

Lecturer

Dr Mary-Anne Kate is a researcher specialising in interpersonal trauma, attachment, and post-traumatic disorders. She is a Scientific Committee member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), where she also teaches the introductory course on dissociation.

Dr Ruben Laukkonen

Lecturer

Ruben’s research uncovers empirically grounded and experientially authentic models of meditation, insight, and awareness. He has a special interest in understanding advanced stages of meditation from a Bayesian or predictive brain perspective. Ruben is also fascinated by false insights and "Aha!" moments, which can happen in every day life, under intoxication, due to misinformation, or mental illness.

Dr Mitchell Longstaff

Lecturer

Dr Longstaff's research relates to fundamental and applied cognition (working memory, eyewitness memory), discrete/dynamic motor control, psychomotor skills (handwriting, drawing, aiming) and factors affecting these (dual-task performance, neurological degradation, individual differences, sex differences, anxiety). It has applications in education, development, forensics, ergonomics and neurological assessment, with Cognitive Psychology and Evolutionary Psychology as its theoretical foundation.

Dr Darran Stonehouse

Lecturer

Darran's research interests centre on contemporary housing and homelessness issues in Australia, trends in social policy and human services provision, and lived experiences of marginalised populations. He is passionate about collaborating with industry partners and communities to design and conduct research projects that further social justice.

Dr Royce Willis

Lecturer

Within Environmental Psychology, my research has primarily centred around exploring the intricate interplay between pro-environmental behaviour, mental well-being, and the emerging phenomenon of eco-anxiety. I have examined the impact of individual nuances, including avoidance and critical thinking tendencies, on shaping environmentally conscious actions. I have also conducted research into the innovative domain of Environmental Psychophysiology, utilizing electroencephalography and the startle.

Associate Lecturer Clarissa Hitchcock

Associate Lecturer

Clarissa is currently completing her Doctoral Degree, looking at the role of education in supporting social work students to develop and integrate professional social work resilience into their practice.