Researcher profiles

The Caring Futures Institute is bringing researchers together to improve care and self-care. We are working on evidence-based and creative solutions to improve health now and into the future.

We are health care professionals, nurses and clinicians and we are researchers dedicated to different areas of expertise. We have experience from around the globe and strong partnerships with industry care providers and government services. We care about working together to build better lives, better communities, better care and better systems.

Professor Alison Kitson

Foundational Director & Knowledge Translation lead

Cares about generating and getting new knowledge from research into the hands of people who make decisions about resources, run organisations and who deliver and receive care.

Alison is an internationally recognised leader in nursing and knowledge translation research. She is the inaugural Vice President and Executive Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University. Alison has published more than 300 publications and has a long track record in attracting research income.

Alison is passionate about recognising the impact care has on individual and population health and wellbeing. Her mission is to change the way society thinks about and invests in care and caring solutions. She believes this can be done through innovative and collaborative approaches based on research evidence and in partnership with decision makers and users of care services.

Professor Rebecca Golley

Better Lives

Cares about getting more vegetables and better nutrition onto kids’ plates.

Rebecca is a nationally recognised expert in childhood obesity and nutrition promotion. She has undertaken postdoctoral research in the UK and with Australian agencies such as the CSIRO and NHMRC. Rebecca leads a program of public health nutrition research at Flinders University. Rebecca is currently contributing to a national CSIRO project and new free toolkit VegKit for educators, health professionals and research agencies with information on dietary guidelines and best practice to help increase children’s vegetable intake and increase health.

Professor Robyn Clark

Better Care

Cares about improving heart health through innovative technologies.

Robyn is an internationally recognised senior clinician and researcher in heart health. She is a qualified registered nurse and critical care nurse. Robyn’s research is focused on heart health with an interest in increasing access to services for heart failure and heart disease patients especially in rural and remote Australia and the use of technology in health delivery. Through research, Robyn has codesigned an interactive app for improving awareness and action for heart attack symptoms and heart failure health management.

Professor Sally Robinson

Better Communities

Cares about the contributions people with a disability can make if given an equal opportunity.

Sally is a leader in inclusion research co-design and participation and collaboration with people with disability. Her research is focused on resolving key social policy concerns such as safety and abuse, wellbeing, participation and funding and organisation of community services and disability inclusion. Sally is currently leading projects exploring disability policy and practice with vulnerable young people. She is interested in removing barriers and increasing opportunities for people with disability participation in all communities.

Professor Julie Ratcliffe

Better Systems (Interim) & Health & Social Care Economics

Cares about measuring and valuing costs and outcomes to enhance health and quality of life throughout the lifetime.

Julie is an experienced health economist and internationally recognised leader in economic evaluation for health and social care sectors. She is Professor of Health Economics in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University. She has published more than 200 papers and has been a chief investigator for over 50 multi-disciplinary research grants.

Julie has led several large-scale multi-state projects including a current project funded via the Australian Research Council Linkage Grant scheme to develop a new consumer focused quality of life instrument for quality assessment and economic evaluation in aged care.

Associate Professor Belinda Lange

Technology

Cares about developing and implementing technology that helps improve people's lives.

Belinda is a physiotherapist and an international expert on game-based virtual reality exercise and rehabilitation. She has been the Principal Investigator on over $1.9 million in external funding for projects that developed and clinically evaluated virtual reality tools for healthy aging and neurological rehabilitation.

Belinda's work has been recognised in international media appearances and through Best Paper awards at international conferences. She is a regular plenary and keynote speaker at workshops and conferences in Australia and abroad. Belinda’s research focuses on how technology can enhance outcomes of training, wellness and rehabilitation interventions.

Professor Joanne Arciuli

Methodological Innovations

Cares about innovating in research to improve care.

Joanne is passionate about an interdisciplinary approach to research. Her research on child development and disability focuses on human communication in its many forms and across a variety of languages and cultures. She also works in the area of wellbeing in disadvantaged and marginalised groups, as well as parenting and clinical practice. Her collaborative research program includes behavioural assessment (conducted in a variety of settings including schools, clinics, and in families' homes), efficacy studies of new programs and interventions, survey methods, acoustic analyses of speech, brain imaging (PET, fMRI), neurophysiological recording (EEG), and computational modelling, among other methods.

Joanne is interested in bringing together diverse research teams and helping individuals, their families, and their communities to flourish.