Queensland Mental Health Researcher Prepares for Term at Ivy League Campus

Pioneering Central Queensland University mental health researcher Dr Louise Byrne has earned a prestigious Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship to continue her research at Yale University next year.

As part of the scholarship, Dr Byrne also has a three-year Research Fellowship with RMIT University but she will continue to live locally in Yeppoon and will sustain an adjunct role with CQUniversity.

Dr Byrne’s career as a Lived Experience Mental Health Academic has been informed by her personal experience of significant mental health challenges, service use and periods of healing.

Thanks to Fulbright, she will work within the Yale University Program for Recovery and Community Health in New Haven, USA.

While at Yale, Dr Byrne will be included as a full member of staff with administrative support and professional development. ‘

“I’m looking forward to building lasting collaborations with research colleagues at Yale and throughout America as a result of this opportunity,” she says.

Dr Byrne’s research focuses on the emerging lived experience mental health workforce and will expand to explore factors that assist in the successful inclusion of lived experience roles within the wider workforce.

She says that lived experience roles contribute to better outcomes for mental health service users.  However, the lived experience workforce faces many barriers.

Dr Byrne’s findings will be compared to her previous studies in Australia and used to inform the development of a toolkit to aid the inclusion of lived experience roles, both nationally and internationally.

“I ultimately hope this work will contribute to a greater understanding of the needs of people in the workforce who experience mental health challenges, and assist in better supporting them,” she says.

CQUniversity Vice-Chancellor Professor Scott Bowman has offered congratulations to Dr Byrne and says CQUni is committed to nurturing research talent.

“We are looking forward to an ongoing relationship with Louise through her adjunct position,” he says.

Dr Byrne will transfer to her RMIT Research Fellowship in July before working at Yale University from April to September next year.

By Marc Barnbaum, CQUniversity
Originally published on CQUniNews