Anita has had many years of experience in aged care nursing across a number of contexts in practice, research and teaching. In practice she has worked in different settings in both the acute, community and aged care sectors. Since becoming a nurse academic, the focus of her teaching and research has been in aged care and nursing practice across sectors especially in areas of dementia care and end of life care.

She teaches in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs at the tertiary level with an emphasis on dementia care, aged care and end of life care, and also supervises higher degree students who have an interest in aged care, general nursing or qualitative research. Some of the research undertaken by Anita has included nursing practice in aged care, palliative care in residential aged care, Indigenous health, clinical education in residential aged care, person centred dementia care and cultural and linguistic diversity in carers, staff and persons with dementia.

Currently Anita’s research focusses on grey nomads with diabetes and their self-management, as well as intergenerational programs in residential aged care. She was the chief investigator that informed the development of the educational resource ‘Come Into My World’ for undergraduate healthcare students on how to interact with persons with dementia.