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Brenda Happell
University of Newcastle
Professor Brenda Happell, University of Newcastle, is a registered nurse with specialist qualifications in mental health nursing. She has 29 years’ experience in academia in Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT. Throughout her career she has been a passionate and unrelenting advocate for Mental Health Nursing. Brenda was the inaugural Director of the Centre for Psychiatric Nursing at the University of Melbourne, former Director of the Institute for Health and Social Science Research at Central Queensland University and Professor of Nursing and Executive Director of Synergy, Nursing and Midwifery Research Centre at University of Canberra and ACT Health. She is a Fellow and Board Director of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses, and former Editor of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. Her research interests include: consumer participation in mental health services, physical health of people experiencing mental illness, and mental health nursing education. Brenda is the lead investigator of a NHMRC grant: Improving the cardiometabolic health of people with psychosis: The Physical Health Nurse Consultant service, a nurse-led initiative. She was the proud recipient of the inaugural VMIAC lifetime ally award in 2018.
