Associate Professor Nicole Reilly

Nicole is a Research Fellow at the Australian Health Services Research Institute, University of Wollongong and Conjoint Senior Lecturer,  School of Psychiatry, UNSW Medicine. She has over 15 years experience in perinatal mental health research and evaluation. She has worked with leading experts in the field over the course of her career, including developing and co-writing the beyondblue National Action Plan for Perinatal Mental Health (2008) and collaboration with a health economist to estimate the Plan’s implementation costs. This National Action plan led to the implementation of the federally funded National Perinatal Depression Initiative ($85M; 2008-2013). 

Nicole has experience conducting prospective studies, including coordinating a five-year longitudinal study examining the impact of anxiety during pregnancy and early parenthood on maternal health, infant stress reactivity and child development. She has an ongoing interest in the role of perinatal mental health policy initiatives in improving outcomes for women and families, and in the use of population-based data to examine these issues. Nicole’s other research interests include the developmental origins of health and disease, the impact of mental health morbidity on the experience of parenting, and outcomes for women admitted to specialist mother-baby inpatient units.