Susannah is both a registered nurse and midwife who holds Post Grad certificates in Teaching and Midwifery as well as a Masters of Midwifery (James Cook University) and a PhD from the University of Queensland (2022). Susannah joined the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work in 2004 and since that time has held many and varied positions, currently as a lecturer in Midwifery. A passionate Midwife and teacher Susannah left the clinical area after 20 years of clinical practice to pursue her desire to cultivate the next generation of Midwives. Since her time at UQ Susannah has been awarded a Citation for outstanding contributions to student learning for her work in developing the inaugural Bachelor of Midwifery and a fellowship with the Higher Education Academy of UK. Susannah’s research interests are around clinical care provision for women that places them central to all decision making, woman-centred care. Susannah’s PhD focused on the development of these specific care behaviours in midwifery students.

Fiona is a Registered Nurse and Midwife with clinical, policy, education and research experience in midwifery and neonatal nursing. She has qualifications in education, public health and epidemiology, and a strong track record in academic mentorship. Fiona is a Churchill Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian College of Midwives and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Prior to her appointment at USC, Fiona was a foundation academic in the UQ School of Nursing & Midwifery (2005-2018) where she pioneered Queensland’s first Bachelor of Midwifery program and designed and implemented UQ's first practice based electronic portfolio. Fiona’s expertise spans clinical, health services and education research in particular longitudinal cohort studies, randomised trials, qualitative approaches and mixed methods. She has $3m in grants since 2009, and over 100 peer reviewed publications. Fiona’s disciplinary leadership is demonstrated at national and international levels through a long history of ministerial appointments, membership of research foundation grants committees, accreditation panels, as Sub-Editor for Women & Birth, on U21 Health Sciences Group Executive (2013-2016) and the ARC – ERA Impact and Engagement Pilot (2017).

Kristen is the Senior Epidemiologist, Paediatric Critical Care Research Group, The University of Queensland and Senior Biostatistician, Mater Research. Kristen supports researchers with statistical advice and analysis services, co-ordination of development of research databases (both stand-alone databases and web-based systems), creation of randomisation schedules for clinical trials, review of reporting of statistical results and providing statistical support duties to Data and Safety Monitoring Committees (DSMC). Kristen has served as the Vice-Chair of the Mater Research DSMC, member of Mater Misericordiae Limited Human Research Ethics Committee (MML HREC) (previously Co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee, MML HREC), as well as numerous other committees relating to research education and translation of research into clinical practice. Kristen has supported over 900 research projects, ranging from simple quality assurance audits to complex clinical trials over a range of disciplines. Additionally, in a previous role Kristen had oversight of human research ethics, research governance, research funding and performance, clinical project operations (including establishment of the Mater Clinical Trials Unit), research development and data management and analysis. During this role, she also led the team which won the Australasian Research Management Society Award for Excellence in Research Management Practice: Working Smarter Category. Kristen’s collaborations have resulted in more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and she is currently a CI on three NHMRC Project Grants. In addition to performing statistical analyses, Kristen has a strong interest in the education of researchers in best practice of statistics and presentation of results, resulting in a published book chapter in 2014, and development and presentation of more than 20 research courses.