Associate Professor Tom Buckley is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School, Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine and Health. Tom has been a registered nurse since 1991 and has practised in senior nursing positions in the UK, USA and Australia in specialties such as nephrology, intensive care and acute cardiology. Tom’s primary clinical research activity is in the study of psychological and physical stressors and their impact on cardiovascular health. Additionally, he is an active researcher in end-of-life care and bereavement as well as nurse practitioner scope of practice.

Tom has fulfilled several national leadership roles including Chair of Medicare Benefits Schedule, Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Reference Group, Chair of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council Nurse Practitioner Accreditation Committee, Clinical Lead (Nursing), Healthcare Professionals Prescribing Project Health Workforce Australia, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) Technical Advisory Committee for Nurse Practitioners. Tom is also editor with Australian Critical Care and editor of Lewis’s Medical-Surgical textbook (Australian edition). 

RN, ICU Cert, BN, Grad Dip Adv Nurs, PhD. FAAN, GAICD

Tracey Bucknall is a Deakin Distinguished Professor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, and Co-Director of the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research, Institute of Health Transformation, Deakin University. 

She holds a joint appointment at Alfred Health as the Foundational Chair in Nursing, and Director of Nursing Research. She also holds Adjunct Professorships at the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark and Macquarie University, Australia.

Professor Bucknall is internationally recognised as a decision scientist in health care. Her research focuses on improving patient safety, augmenting clinical decision-making of clinicians and consumers, and the implementation of research into practice. She has a sustained record of competitive research funding, presented her research nationally and internationally, and published over 250 scholarly publications in decision making and knowledge translation. She serves on National Health and Medical Research Council grant review panels and advisory committees for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. Her recent awards include: the Deakin Distinguished Professorial Award (2017), Fellowship of the American Academy of Nursing (2018) and the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame of Sigma International (2019).

RN PhD Centaur Fellow

Amanda is a critical care nurse of 20 years+ experience and is a Senior Research Fellow with Griffith University and the Princess Alexandra Hospital. She is an Early Career Researcher with her PhD conferred in 2022 and has a strong national and international track record in patient-focused clinical and health services research. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications and 4 book chapters, with career funding of around $3m in competitive and industry grants. Her research interests include respiratory management in ICU and vascular access devices, particularly extracorporeal membrane oxygenation cannulae and haemodialysis catheters.

RM, MEd (Adult), PhD

Professor Allison Cummins is the Head of Midwifery at the University of Newcastle, where she has led the implementation of an innovative curriculum, conducted impactful translational research, and enhanced the visibility of the midwifery profession. Her research is focussed on scaling up midwifery continuity of care through implementing workshops for students and graduate transition. More recently the focus of her research has shifted to demonstrating the benefits of midwifery continuity of care for priority groups of women and childbearing people, particularly those with perinatal mental health concerns. A large body of her research has been the transformation of an evidence informed framwork to measure the quality of maternity care of the service user perspective and student/graduate transitions. Allison has over 70 publications in high quality journals, she continues to provide mentoring to higher degree research students and early career researchers. Her renowned expertise has resulted in invited keynote presentations at national and international conferences. Professor Cummins’ leadership and advocacy for Australian midwifery are reflected in her national roles, including her appointment as Midwifery Director on the Board of the Australian College of Midwives (2020–2024), her tenure as Chair of the Trans-Tasman Midwifery Education Consortium (2022) and her recent membership on the Midwifery Advisory Committee for the Council of Deans for Nursing and Midwifery Australian and New Zealand. Allison contributes to the advancement of midwifery scholarship as an Associate Editor of Women and Birth International (WOMBI), a Q1-ranked journal and the leading publication globally in the field of midwifery.

Professor Caleb Ferguson RN PhD is a Professor of Nursing (Chronic & Complex Care) and Associate Head of School- Nursing (Research Strategy, Development & Partnership) at the University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia. 

Over the last 6 months, he has led the development of the Centre for Chronic & Complex Care Research. He is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and a Fellow of the Australian College of Nursing, European Society of Cardiology, and Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand (CSANZ). He leads a program of clinical research in stroke prevention, cardiovascular disease, frailty science, and digital health. An expert in translational research methods, he has published over 120 academic works and received over $12m as a chief investigator in competitive research funding, including NHMRC, MRFF, and the Heart Foundation. Prof Ferguson serves as Chair of the Cardiovascular Nursing Council, Board Director of the CSANZ, and Editor for Heart, Lung & Circulation and the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. Over the last 4 years, he previously held the appointment of Deputy Director of the Implementation Science Platform for SPHERE, a Sydney-based Advanced Health & Research Translation Centre. 

In 2023, Ferguson was awarded a NSW 2023 Young Tall Poppy Science Award recognising his world-class research and commitment to communicating science. He was also a finalist in the 2023 Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazers, recognising his leadership in developing and using innovative solutions to address key challenges facing our health system. 

RN PhD

Sandy Middleton is the Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Nursing Research Institute at St Vincent’s Health Network Sydney, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and Australian Catholic University. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. She is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow and a Mackillop Distinguished Professor at Australian Catholic University. She is the lead investigator on the Quality in Acute Stroke Care Program, leading implementation of nurse-initiated protocols to manage fever, hyperglycaemia and swallowing post-stroke including successful implementation into 64 hospitals within 17 European countries. Her research areas of interest are implementation science, stroke, patient safety and quality.

 Professor Philippa Seaton PhD, MA(Hons), BA, RN, FCNA(NZ).

Philippa is Professor in the Department of Nursing, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand, a Fellow of the College of Nurses Aotearoa New Zealand, and an Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Philippa’s core research relates to nursing education, development of the nursing workforce, and research that informs healthcare to promote improved outcomes. Projects have investigated nursing education; clinical simulation; inter-professional education; technology-enhanced learning and teaching with virtual reality; telehealth; wound care and pressure injuries. Philippa collaborates with healthcare providers in research partnerships leading to the development and translation to practice of knowledge for the profession, and in supporting clinical areas’ research capacity. She has international research collaborations with the University of Melbourne School of Nursing, and the Australasian Education, Simulation and Safety collaboration. Philippa is a founding member of the Canterbury Nursing Research Alliance with Te Whatu Ora – Waitaha Canterbury, Te Pukenga, and Canterbury University. 

Professor Marion Eckert is the Foundation Director of the Rosemary Bryant AO Research Centre (RBRC), Adelaide University, established in 2016. She is also the Professor of Health Innovation and Enterprise at Adelaide University and Adjunct Professor at Flinders University. Marion also chairs the ANMCTN Strategic Advisory Committee and Executive Committee which is the first nursing and midwifery focused research network across Australia and New Zealand. 

Since commencing in her role, Marion has led RBRC to achieve more than $13 million in research funding, led the Centre from one employee to now having over 85 members of the Research Centre and 30 direct employees within the Centre. 

In 2025, Marion was nominated as a finalist in the Australian of the Year (SA) and was the Winner of the SA Health Research and Innovation Award and in 2024 was the recipient of the Sigma Theta Tau International Hall of Fame Nurse Researcher of Fame awarded in Singapore in July, a finalist in the 2024 Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazer and a finalist in the SA Health Nursing and Midwifery Research and Innovation Awards.

Associate Professor Jackie Robinson is the Associate Head Research and a Nurse Practitioner in the School of Nursing at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Jackie has over 25 years’ experience in palliative care working in the acute hospital setting and more recently in residential aged care settings. She has contributed to Ministry of Health policy work and currently sits on the Health NZ Te Whatu Ora Inequity in Palliative Care Working Group. Dr Robinson leads a program of research on equity and social justice in palliative care with a particular focus on the impact of deprivation and homelessness at the end of life. She has published extensively in her area of research.