Women's Mental Health

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Research

Research Staff & Programs

Women’s Mental Health

Professor Jane Fisher

Head of the Women’s Mental Health Program

Jane Fisher is an academic Clinical Psychologist with longstanding interests in the links between women’s reproductive health and mental health from adolescence to mid-life, in particular related to fertility, conception, pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. She has completed major epidemiological studies in clinical and community settings in Australia and Vietnam and nationally-funded intervention trials, and has supervised more than 30 research higher degree and postgraduate coursework projects to completion. She is an expert technical advisor to international agencies including the World Health Organization and the United Nations Population Fund.

Professor Jane Fisher's publications here

Dr Heather Rowe

Senior Research Fellow

Heather has a background in the biological sciences and health promotion. Her program of research in women’s mental health promotion positions women’s mental health in its social, economic, cultural and political contexts and recognises gender disadvantage as a key determinant. Outcomes of her work include development, evaluation and knowledge exchange of evidence-based interventions. These address modifiable social factors with the aim of improving mental health in diverse groups of women during the childbearing year and at other life phases.

Publications

Dr Maggie Kirkman

Senior Research Fellow

Maggie is a psychologist whose research has been conducted in multi-disciplinary environments. She has applied her expertise in qualitative methods, including narrative theory, to the investigation of psychosocial aspects of reproduction such as infertility, donor-assisted conception, elective abortion, teenage pregnancy, and parent-adolescent communication about sexuality, as well as to children’s experiences of homelessness with their families. Her current research includes an NHMRC-funded project on women’s experience of a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment during the reproductive years and an ARC-funded project on fertility management in contemporary Australia.

Publications

Dr Sonia McCallum

Research Fellow

Sonia is a Research Fellow with a background in medical science research. She completed her post-graduate studies focusing on the mechanisms contributing to the development and progression of leukaemia. Whilst in this field, Sonia gained an appreciation of the social determinants of health, which inspired her to complete further study in the area of public health. She is currently working on several research projects focusing on the health of women and their infants in the postpartum period, including maternal mental health, infant behaviour, health service use, and the evaluation of services supporting families during this time. Her research interests include women’s mental health including fatigue, health service use, cancer prevention and treatment, and program evaluation.

Publications

Dr Karen Wynter

Research Fellow

Karen has a background in psychology and applied statistics. Her recent research projects have focused on psychosocial determinants of women’s and men’s postnatal mental health; dyadic analysis of couple mental health following the birth of first infant; prenatal genetic screening in pregnant adolescents; antenatal attachment in pregnant adolescents and the effects of maternal age and ART conception on women’s pregnancy adjustment, birth experience and postnatal mental health. Her interests include perinatal anxiety in the context of the mother-father-infant triad, maternal fetal attachment and psychosocial consequences of infertility.

Publications

Dr Sara Holton

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Sara Holton has a background in psychology, gender studies, and human resource management. She is currently involved in a study funded by the Australian Research Council investigating how Australian women and men manage their fertility. Sara’s PhD research examined the salient factors in Australian women’s childbearing preferences and outcomes. She found that women are not always able to choose when and if they have a child, and that their childbearing outcomes are associated with diverse biological, psychological and social factors. The findings have implications for policy, and indicate that multiple approaches are required which are sensitive to and address the barriers women face in family formation.

Publications

Mr Thach Tran

PhD candidate

Thach Tran has a background in epidemiology. He has had experience in all aspects of research design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination in resource-constrained settings. His current PhD research is to examine the effects of maternal common mental disorders and micronutrient deficiencies on infant development. His research interests include common mental disorders in women, including social factors and effect on their children in low- and middle-income countries.

Publications