THRI PhD Graduates

Congratulations to the seven THRI PhD candidates who graduated in December: Rachel Westcott, Priyanka Thapliyal, Sabrina Naz, Zelalem Mengesha, Alex Hawkey, Zoi Triandafilidis and Maria Gabriela Uribe Guajardo, photographed with Professor Peter Shergold, Chancellor of Western Sydney University.

Everyone at THRI wishes you all the best for 2019!

Gabriela is currently a Research Assistant at School of Medicine WSU in partnership with Mental Health First Aid Australia in a project entitled 'teen and Youth Mental Health First Aid for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations' funded by the Primary Health Network.

She is also a Project Coordinator, based at Drug Health Services, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (SLHD), implementing Evidence-Based Practice for Managing Comorbid Substance Use and Mental Illness Using a Multimodal Training Package for clinicians assisting comorbid clients. This project is funded by the New South Wales (NSW) Health Translational Research Grant Scheme with contributions from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use.

Alex will continue to work with THRI researching in the areas of gender, sexuality and health, with a focus on women’s reproductive health, CALD health, LGBTI health, cancer survivorship, and as a mentor for the burgeoning THRI HDR student cohort.

Rachel: I'm working part-time in my Veterinary practice, running South Australian Veterinary Emergency Management (which is 100% volunteer role) and searching for funding for more research so I can pick up where my thesis left off. As I'm not with a University or other eligible organisation I'm not eligible for ARC or NHMRC grants, so am planning to approach stakeholders, industry and end-users for seed funding. I hope to continue my cropland fire research, and trial and evaluate some of my PhD findings. I have had a conference paper and a poster accepted for the International Association of Wildland Fire conference held jointly in Sydney, Albuquerque and Marseilles, in April.

Zoi is working across two NFPs, Black Dog Institute and Carers NSW, researching knowledge translation and family and friend carers.

Zelalem will continue as a research officer within the Quality and System Performance division of Cancer Institute NSW: As a team he will work to improve the quality of cancer care in NSW through three major programs: Reporting for Better Cancer Outcomes (RBCO), Surgical Optimisation and CanRefer.

Priyanka will continue work as an Research Officer at the Inside Out Institute for Eating Disorders at Sydney University:

Receiving the doctorate degree has been the most incredible and amazing thing that happened this year. I feel indebted and thankful to all the staff members of THRI who had been there always for me and made this PhD journey a memorable one.