I am a Senior Lecturer and Discipline Lead in Health Sciences at La Trobe University. My background is in organisational psychology, I have worked as a researcher, consultant and educator in metropolitan and rural settings, in three different countries: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Australia. My research career of more than 25 years is divers, but most of my projects fall under the broad umbrella of improvements in health care service delivery and quality of care.
My areas of research include: circadian rhythm research, psychosocial oncology, perinatal care, palliative and end-of-life care, and improving rural health care delivery and outcomes. In my health care research, I am not only interested in patients, but also in the health care workers.
As a co-investigator in the National Study into Nursing and Midwifery in the United Kingdom (1989-1993), our team focussed on the health and well-being of shiftworkers. My PhD looked at the relationship between age, sleep, and health health in shiftworking nurses. I was one of the first to conduct a longitudinal study into the return to work of cancer patients, and I established the Midwifery Science Department at VU University in Amsterdam, where I was CI on the Deliver Study. This first nationwide study into the quality and provision of primary midwifery care in the Netherlands, was set up to provide benchmarks in care as well as train midwives to become researchers, thus increasing the research capacity of the profession.
In October 2013, I moved to from Amsterdam to Mildura in rural Australia. There, I quickly became involved with research capacity building at this rural campus of La Trobe University. I am an advocate for not only making the community aware of research that occurs locally, but also motivating colleagues to engage in research. I have strengthened relations between the University and our local stakeholders.
Supervising Graduate Research students is something I like best about my academic work. I have been lucky to have had strong candidates. I supervised Graduate Research students both overseas and in Australia. I supervised postgraduates at the University of Sheffield (UK). The DELIVER project at the VU University of Amsterdam (NL), had 10 PhD projects attached to it. . And I am currently principal supervisor of 6 PhD students, with a 7th Full-time Industry PhD-Scholar being in the candidate selection process.
I have a strong record of research publications, relative to my career trajectory. I have published 93 documents which include 59 peer reviewed papers, frequently in Q1 journals, 2 book chapters, and 10 peer-reviewed conference publications.
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education
PhD - University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
Master of Organisational Psychology - University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Bachelor of Psychology - University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
achievements
2019 | Vice-Chancellor’s Award for cultural quality ‘connectedness’ (individual) -
La Trobe University
2010 | NVPO Award - Dutch Psychosocial Oncology Society
1994-1995 | KWF Fellowship Occupational Rehabilitation of Cancer Patients
- Dutch Cancer Society
I like running. I ran four marathons: New York, London, Berlin, and Chicago