
PhD, Masters of Public Health, BA (Hons) Social Psychology
I am a senior research fellow and deputy director at the Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation (chetre.org/). I am an applied public health social scientists who is interested in complex real world policy issues. I am fortunate enough to be co-located at UNSW and South Western Sydney Local Health District, where I represent CHETRE on the population health directorate. I focus on research that makes a difference at the local level as well as connecting with national and international research, policy and practice. I am deeply interested in connecting data with theory as part of the research process. For example my research focusses on the practice of policy making (for instance strategic city planning / planning and delivering different types of infrastructure - transport, energy, digital) and brings in theories from political science and urban politics to explain the influences behind that practice.
I am also interested in cross-disciplinary working to progress healthy public policy. This includes transdisciplinary knowledge and collaboration, and understanding how governance and intersectoral action can be developed to improve health and wellbeing in public policy making.
I am experienced in teaching and running workshops to progress healthy public policy. This includes different processes like impact assessment, program logic, and realist evaluation. I have run workshops all over the world and nearly all Australian jurisdictions.
I am involved in several journals, including being a board member and associate editor for the journal Cities and Health (tandfonline.com/loi/rcah20)
I am president of the NSW Branch of the Public Health Association of Australia.
My research interests include health and health equity as cross cutting public policy issues, specifically within urban and regional planning and infrastructure policy and planning, and the use of impact assessment to improve public health. I have received research funding of Aus$6 million including fellowships and grants from the ARC and NHMRC.
Broadly my current research activities are as follows:
- healthy public policy / health in all policies
- 'health' political science: new institutionalism, governance and urban politics
- working with local government
- health and masterplans
- city deals
- infrastructure planning and delivery
- refugees and asylum seekers
- housing and health
- pandemics and cities
I am co-located with South Western Sydney Population Health
Formal Policy Engagement
I coordinate the Policy Studies unit PHCM9381