Senior Research Fellow
Heather Rowe is a health scientist with backgrounds in the biological and psychological sciences and expertise in health promotion in the perinatal period. Her program of research positions women's mental health in its social, economic, cultural and political contexts and recognises gender disadvantage as a key determinant. She conducts clinical and community-based trials of existing and innovative interventions. Outcomes of her work include development, evaluation, knowledge exchange and implementation of evidence-based mental health promotion programs. She has supervised more than twenty undergraduate and postgraduate student research projects to completion, serves on editorial boards and is a regular reviewer for international peer-reviewed journals. She is President of the Australian Society for Psychosocial Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Publications
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
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
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
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Karin has a background in clinical nursing and psychology. After 20 years as clinical coordinator of IVF programs, she joined a research team headed by Professor Jane Fisher at Melbourne University in 2000. Karin’s main areas of research interests are the psychosocial aspects of infertility and infertility treatment; health and development of children born as a result of assisted conception; the transition to parenthood; and parenting of children with disabilities. Her PhD research examined the experience of birth and mothering after assisted conception. She is currently involved in an investigation of barriers and promoters of social support in facilitated peer-support groups for carers of children with disabilities and contributing to the development of a national public education campaign relating to preconception health and the factors that affect fertility.
Publications
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
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
Research Assistant
Minh Thi Hong Le has a background in pharmacy. She worked in the pharmacy department in Hanoi French Hospital, Hanoi, Vietnam for more than three years before coming to Australia. She has recently completed her Masters in Public Health at Monash University. She is currently working on a study examining the effectiveness of a service for parents of unsettled infants, and another one investigating the prevalence of asthma and some respiratory diseases among a cohort of Victorian young adults. She is interested in the social determinants of health, especially mental health among adolescents in resource-constrained settings and the application of statistical methods in analysing data.
Publications
Research Assistant
Jillian Graham has a background in music, women's studies, oral history and business administration. Her PhD was a multidisciplinary, qualitative study involving an exploration of the experiences of four Australian women of different generations in blending motherhood with their careers as composers. She is assisting Dr Maggie Kirkman with qualitative interviews for two current projects.
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Research 
Professor Jane Fisher
