Our people

I am a Associate Professor and registered Clinical Psychologist in the School of Psychological Sciences, and currently hold an NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellowship. I am the Deputy Director of Research in the newly established Macquarie University Lifespan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre (website under development). This centre brings together two established centres; the Centre for Ageing, Cognition and Wellbeing  https://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/healthy-people/centres/centre-for-ageing-cognition-and-wellbeing and the Centre for Emotional Health https://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/healthy-people/centres/centre-for-emotional-health-ceh to join with colleagues from Psychology, Law, Business, Medicine, Education, Linguistics and others.  My research examines the mechanisms underlying anxiety (and related) disorders in children, adolescents and older adults, and uses those mechanisms to optimise treatment. These interests include how fear extinction learning, cognitive abilities, attention, memory and family influences can impact the development, maintenance and treatment of anxiety problems. I completed my PhD and Masters of Clinical Psychology at Macquarie University in 2014, followed by postdoctoral fellowship positions at the University of South Florida (USA; 2014-2015) then at Macquarie University (2016). I completed a Macquarie University Research Fellowship (2017-2022) before starting my NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellowship (2023-2027). I am a registered Clinical Psychologist and board-approved supervisor for Clinical Psychology registrars. 

I am Director of My Mind Check, a new free and voluntary digital mental health and wellbeing screening tool for all Australian schools, funded by the Federal Department of Education. I am also Co-Deputy Director of the Lifespan Health and Wellbeing Research Centre. My research aims to use technology to remove barriers to families accessing good quality assessment and treatment for youth mental health. I focus on applied research that works to include and serve as many Australian families as possible across a range of context (including in education). I have developed online interventions that have been used by Australian families, in Australian public schools, and internationally in Norway, Denmark and United States.

I was appointed Dean at Macquarie Law School in July 2022, having previously served as Deputy Dean (2019 - 2021) and Director of Education (2015-2021). I joined MLS in 2005 from a professional background working in mediation and Youth Justice Conferencing and have taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Legal Ethics and Alternative Dispute Resolution.  I also provide advice and training to lawyers, mediators and other professionals working with older Australians. I am an Executive Member of the macquarie University Lifespan Health and Wellbeing Research Centre where my research focusses on the intersection between Law and Ageing, with a particular focus on the rights of older Australians and the legal decision-making capacity of older people, including those with a diagnosis of dementia. My PhD examined how lawyers assess the legal decision-making capacity of their clients and included empirical research centred on complaints made to the NSW Office of the Legal Services Commission. My current research is centered on the topics of substitute decision-making, guardianship, powers of attorney, elder abuse  and the regulation of Aged Care. I have maintained my professional mediation practice and am a member of the National Sports Tribunal, and the NSW Community Justice Centre with more than fifteen years experience in the resolution of workplace, community, professional and family disputes.  I am a member of EMAN - 'Elder Mediation Australasian Network' and of the Australian Gerontological Association and AAG's Elder Abuse Special Interest Group.  

Alice Chik is an Associate Professor and the Graduate Research Training Director in the School of Education, Faculty of Arts. She serves as the Associate Director of Multilingualism Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences.  Her primary area of research examines language learning and multilingual literacies in digital environments. She is especially interested in exploring how language learners construct and direct their autonomous learning in informal contexts. She also has a particular interest in multilingualism is public discourse, representation, and narratives of everyday multilingual experience. She is the lead co-editor of Multilingual Sydney (Routledge, 2019) and lead author of 'Languages of Sydney: The people and the passion' (Candlin & Mynard, 2019). Her recent projects can be found on www.multilingualsydney.org.

Jonas is an Associate Professor at the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy (MUCHE) with a focus on mental health and the study of older adults and ageing. He was previously a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health at the University of Queensland, a researcher at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, and a Senior Associate at KPMG. His research aims to enable healthcare organisations to introduce new and review existing policies and programs to deliver healthcare efficiently, effectively, and equitably. His research is at the intersection of health, economics, and psychology, he regularly works in interdisciplinary teams from those three disciplines and with other clinical researchers. Two of his primary research interests are the role of health as a determinant of economic productivity, for example, how stress and the management of stress affects worker performance, and the study of economic decisions of older adults. Jonas has published  in many of the leading outlets for research in health economics and at the intersection of economics and psychology, including in Health Economics, Social Science & Medicine, the Journal of Public Economics, the European Journal of Health Economics, the Journal of Economic Psychology, the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, and Economics and Human Biology. He has attracted about A$4 million in external funding as a Chief Investigator or Associate Investigator on grants and fellowships. 

I am a Senior Clinical Psychologist and Research Fellow in the School of Psychological Sciences. My applied clinical research aims to improve the mental health and wellbeing of people living neurological disorders. I am particularly passionate about improving access to effective psychological care in neurology. As an emerging researcher, I have developed several streams of research in this area, spanning mental health detection, epidemiology, treatment and policy work. At the eCentreClinic, I have developed an internet-delivered psychological intervention for adults with a neurological disorder, the Wellbeing Neuro Course. This program combines intervention components for mental health and cognitive rehabilitation and is suitable for a variety of neurological disorders. I am currently conducting research funded by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from MS Australia entitled Examining the real world effectiveness and potential of a remotely-delivered psychological treatment for people with MS. You can learn more about this work HERE. I am also currently conducting a MRFF funded clinical trial entitled Comparative effectiveness trial of digital mental healthcare models for adults with epilepsy. 

Rebecca's research interests lie in the area of organisational behaviour, includinghealth and wellbeing at work, team dynamics, leadership and social identity in organizations, particularly (but not exclusively) healthcare organisations. Rebecca’s current research programs focus on resilience and wellbeing at work. She is also interested in the impact of gender at work as well as team performance, particularly team innovation. Rebecca is also researching in the area of leadership. She is actively researching how transformational leadership can increase the effectiveness of teams, particularly multidisciplinary teams. She is also investigating shared leadership in teams and its potential to increase team innovation. Rebecca has published in numerous top tier internationally recognised journals including the Journal of Organizational Behavior (ABDC A*), Human Resource Management (US) (ABDC A*), Human Relations (ABDC A*), Journal of Business Research (ABDC A), Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (ABDC A). She has also published in healthcare management, with articles published in Health Care Management Review (ABDC A), Journal of Advanced Nursing (ERA A*), Medical Care Research and Review and International Journal of Nursing Studies (ERA A*).  Overall, more than half of Rebecca's research outputs in organizational behavior are ranked A or A* (Australian Business Deans Council, UK ABS). Rebecca has successfully supervised a number of doctoral students to completion. Many of her students have published in top-tiered journals, indicating the effectiveness of her supervisory approach. She is keen to work with potential higher degree research students, particularly motivated students in the area of resilence and wellbeing at work, teamwork, leadership and healthcare management. Reflecting the quality of the publications that Rebecca has produced, her academic manuscripts on organisational behaviour and health services management have been recognised internationally, through high-level awards. For example, in 2014, she won the British Academy of Management Best Paper in Strategic Management and, in 2012, the Best Paper Award in Organisational Psychology. Rebecca is a full professional member of the European Association of Work and Organisational Psychology and the US Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Rebecca works with a number of national and international industry collaborators. In addition to her academic experience, Dr Mitchell's worked in the Australian and Irish public sector, as a senior policy advisor. She has worked as State representative on several Council of Australian Government (COAG) working parties and has developed health, community and social services policy at a state and national level. She also worked as State representative on the Council of Australian Government’s Working Group on Health Reform. This provides sound evidence of her ability to understanding issues of significant national importance, particularly in healthcare, and the capacity to undertake research that spans bridges academic research with policy and practice. Keywords Organisational Behavior Resilience Leadership Teams and Teamwork Team Diversity – Gender, Cross-cultural, Multidisciplinary Healthcare Management Health Services Research Social Identity Theory

I am a Distinguished Professor of Psychology , an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, and the Founding Director of the Centre for Emotional Health. I have a background in clinical psychology, especially the understanding and development of mental disorders. I have a history of developing treatment programs and evaluating their efficacy through clinical trials. Foremost among these has been the Cool Kids suite of programs. The Cool Kids programs are now translated into over 25 languages and used in over 30 countries.

Sandie Wong (Doctor of Philosophy in Early Childhood Macquarie University, 2006; Bachelor of Education [Early Childhood Education] [Hons 1] [Macquarie University, 2000]) is a Professor in Early Childhood, Co-Deputy Director of the Centre for Research in Early Childhood at the Macquarie School of Education, and Excutive Member of the Lifepsan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre at Macquarie University. Sandie has worked as an academic, manager, researcher, evaluator, educator, consultant and nurse, within a range of early childhood, academic and health organisations. She held a Research Fellowship with Goodstart Early Learning from 2016-2023. Sandie’s research is driven by a concern with the role early childhood education has in ameliorating disadvantage and reducing marginalisation both contemporaneously and historically. She is committed to working in collaborative, strengths-based ways, with academics from a range of disciplines, early childhood organisations and practitioners, and governments, to lead and support high quality research, evaluation and practitioner enquiry, that contributes to best practice in early childhood. Since 2010, Sandie has been awarded over A$6 million in competitive research income grants, to conduct extensive research and evaluations related to early childhood workforce issues (including educator well-being and educator time-use), practices (including inter-professional practice), and the history of early childhood internationally. This work includes the completed Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project Exemplary early childhood educators at work: A multi-level investigation (LP160100532), and her current ARC Linkage Project Observe, Reflect, Improve: a tool to enrich Children’s Learning ARC (LP 210301171) and ARC Discovery Project Attracting, Sustaining and Preparing Quality Teachers in Early Childhood (DP 240100249) Sandie’s work has been published widely in 75 scholarly publications (57 journal articles; 3 books; 15 book chapters), 55 research reports and knowledge translation documents, and 18 professional publications; and she has presented her work at 27 keynotes / invited presentations, and over 90 peer-reviewed conferences. Sandie is Vice-President for OMEP Asia Pacific Region (Organisation Mondiale pour l’Education Prescolaire [OMEP] or the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education), and Board Member of Northside Community Services, ACT, and SPLAT Maths, ACT. She was on the Editorial Committee of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood (2016-2023) and is a Member of the New South Wales Department of Education Early Childhood Advisory Group (2019 – present). Sandie has been an international expert reviewer for research proposals for the Croatian Science Foundation (2019), the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT), Chile (2018), and the Millennium Science Initiative of the National Agency for Research and Development, Chile (2021 & 2022); and for ARC Future Fellowship, Linkage and Discovery Projects. Sandie is invited to provide expert witness testimony in Australia, including to the South Australian Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and care, high court matters in New South Wales and other reviews and submissions. Sandie has supervised four PhD and three masters’ students to completion and is currently supervising three PhD students; she has examined seven PhD and eight Masters’ theses. She has taught extensively at post-graduate and undergraduate levels at Macquarie University and Charles Sturt University, across multiple early childhood subjects.