Judith Mcara-couper BA, PhD

Judith has been a midwife since 1989. The first five years of her midwifery career were spent in a remote village in Bangladesh. She has worked at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) as a midwifery lecturer since 1997 where for the first 12 years she had a joint appointment as a clinical midwife educator in the birthing unit at Counties Manukau Hospital. After completing her PhD she returned to Bangladesh with WHO to write a Midwifery Curriculum for nurse midwives and has since returned to Bangladesh numerous times with WHO and UNFPA to implement this programme, along with Curriculum Development for Direct Entry Midwifery in Bangladesh. In 2010 Judith was awarded a Post-Doctoral Scholarship. She is a director for the Centre for Midwifery and Women’s health research and involved in research areas such as Maternal Mental Health, Sustainability of Midwifery Practice, and Place of Birth. She was the Chairperson of the Auckland Region of the New Zealand College of Midwives 2008-2011, and was appointed to the Midwifery Council of New Zealand in 2010 and became the Chair of the Council in 2011. Judith became an Associate Professor and Head of Midwifery Department at AUT in 2013.