Speaker Profile
Margaret Harris

Margaret Harris PhD

Nursing
Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia

Connect with the speaker?

Margaret is currently a lecturer at the University of Newcastle where she co-ordinates undergraduate Bachelor of Nursing courses and supervises research higher degree students. Margaret has taught across a wide range of undergraduate and post graduate programs in the Faculty of Health, since 1995, including Bachelor degrees in Medicine; Physiotherapy; Occupational Therapy; Oral Health; Education. Margaret was the program convenor for post graduate course work and research higher degrees in Health Promotion from 2002 - 2006 in the discipline of Health Behaviour Science.

Margaret has extensive experience with international students, for example, teaching post graduate Health Promotion to Masters of Nursing students in Hong Kong. She spent 2011 as an international support academic at Chiang Mai University in Thailand and regularly teaches at Khon Kaen University, also in Thailand.

Margaret's PhD research (Community Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, 1999) was supported by a full time NHMRC PhD scholarship and explored participation in screening for colorectal cancer for first degree relatives of people with colorectal cancer. Margaret was awarded a Fulbright Post Doctoral Award in 2002 to further explore cancer screening behaviours at the University of Hawaii as well as other awards during her PhD candidature including the Public Health Education and Research Trust (PHERT) Health Promotion Evaluation Award for 1997 and received a certificate of commendation as the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) Young Researcher of the Year in 1998.

She has been an investigator on many research grants and has many publications. Topics have included a range of issues related to health behaviour science including the health of vulnerable groups. Her most research recent grant was received as part of her role as a member of the University of Newcastle's Priority Research Centre for Generational Health and Ageing and was from the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (March 2008). Margaret's current research investigates the health and health related behaviours of sex workers in a regional city in Australia. This study has involved a survey and grounded theory through in-depth interviews. The results of this work fill an important gap in existing knowledge and have been applied to produce health promotion information for sex workers. Margaret has a strong interest in this area, including sexually transmitted infections, and currently supervises a PhD student investigating the impact of parents' death due to AIDS among children in Thailand.
EVENTS & ACTIVITIES (Speaking, Spoken, and Authored)