Caring Futures Institute – Ageing and Aged Care Area of Focus

Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) Research Centre

I am an experienced epidemiologist and health services researcher. My research focuses on observational studies to improve the health and care of older people including people accessing aged care services and/or living with dementia or stroke. I regularly use linked routinely collected data sources in my research and I am interested in how we can improve the quality of routinely collected data to answer research questions for populations often excluded from clinical trials.

I graduated with First Class Honours with a Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Sciences in 2012 and completed my Masters in Public Health Services and Health Research in 2013, both from Newcastle University, UK. I continued my higher education at Newcastle University with my PhD in Epidemiology being awarded in 2016. My PhD examined associations between cardiovascular risk factors and cognitive decline in people aged 85 years and over.

In 2016, I commenced a Research Associate appointment at Flinders University with the NHMRC Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre. In 2018, I worked jointly as a Research Fellow for Flinders University and the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) at SAHMRI. ROSA monitors the health, service utilisation, medication use, mortality, and other important outcomes of people receiving aged care in Australia. My work at ROSA included reports for the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety which described the substantial increase in the use of psychotropic medicines in people after entering permanent residential aged care. 

In 2019, I moved back to the UK to commence a Tenure Track Fellowship in the Department of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine at the University of Liverpool, I later finished my Fellowship and became a Lecturer in the same department. In Liverpool, I led many research studies related to the health and care of people at-risk of stroke or following stroke.

2023 saw me return to Australia and ROSA as a Senior Research Fellow. In 2024, ROSA joined the Caring Futures Institute, and I was appointed Associate Professor of Health Services and Epidemiology. My current projects at ROSA include a Stroke Foundation funded project to examine long-term care for people following stroke, and projects to examine the impact of social determinants of health on the use of aged care services.

I am committed to helping share our research with our wider community. From leading the organisation of the Frontiers of Science-Redefining Healthy Ageing Together conference to appearing on invited radio interviews, such as Dr Norman Swan’s The Health Report. I am also passionate about improving the research environment for early- and -mid career researchers. I am a member of the Australian Academy of Science EMCR Forum Executive Committee where I lead the NHMRC/MRFF portfolio to facilitate engagement between NHMRC/MRFF representatives and the EMCR community nationally and work to ensure EMCR views are represented in any NHMRC/MRFF policy decisions which will impact the EMCR community.

• Population Health Surveillance
• Registry Science
• Health Services Research

• Gerontology
• Epidemiology