Staff Biographies

Professor Peter Brooks, Director AHWI

AM MBBS MD Monash, FRACP, FAFRM, FAFPHM, FRCP (Edin, Glas), MD Hon Causa (Lund)

Professor Brooks graduated from Monash University in 1967, returned to Tasmania for post-medical training then went to Scotland in 1972 as a researcher at the University of Glasgow.

He returned to Hobart in 1976 to lecture in medicine before moving to Flinders University in 1978 as senior lecturer in medicine. In 1982 he became Foundation Professor of Rheumatology, Sydney University, based at Royal North Shore Hospital. In 1991 he moved to St Vincent's Hospital as Professor of Medicine and Head of the Medical Professorial Unit, a post he held until he joined the University of Queensland in 1998. He stepped down as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Queensland at the end of 2009.

Professor Brooks has a long-standing interest in the future health workforce and while at the University of Queensland oversaw the development of interprofessional learning as a faculty-wide initiative, a new School of Nursing with nurse practitioner and midwifery streams and the development of a physician assistant program.

Professor Brooks has been a strong advocate for exploring in an evidence-based fashion new models of health care and developing an approach to health care funding which provides better incentives for health promotion and disease prevention and an emphasis upon reducing long-term 'load' on the acute health system.

Ms. Rebecca Gracey, Operations Manager/Research Assistant

BSc. (Hons) University of Durham, UK

Ms. Rebecca Gracey is the Operations Manager at the Australian Health Workforce Institute  and also assists on various research projects. Rebecca has experience in both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis and has spent the past 4 years working as Deputy Operations Manager in the National Health Service Workforce Review Team (WRT) in the UK, a national arms length body of the Department of Health that aimed to inform workforce planning knowledge and expertise in the wider NHS.  WRT has since transitioned to the Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CfWI) which is an international partner of AHWI.

Dr. Lucio Naccarella, Senior Research Fellow

NHMRC Postdoctoral Training Fellowship

BSc (Hons), GradDipMHS, PhD

Dr Lucio Naccarella, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at The Australian Health Workforce Institute at The University of Melbourne, and with General Practice Victoria.

He is a leading primary health care services researcher and evaluator, with interests in systems change, multidisciplinary primary health care team work, primary care organisations and primary medical care workforce reforms, from a policy, research and practice perspective.  His experience includes providing national leadership and input at policy level; reviewing evidence to inform policy decision making; and evaluating national and state level initiatives aimed optimising patient health outcomes and strengthening the primary medical care workforce. 

In April 2010 he commenced an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Australian based Primary health Care Postdoctoral Training Fellowship for four years to undertake research to inform workforce planning within the Australian primary health care setting.

Lucio’s research interests include:

• Strengthening a generalist primary care workforce
• System change within the general practice setting
• Optimising models of multidisciplinary team-based primary care delivery
• Facilitating evidence-based primary health care workforce policy and practice change

Dr. Louise Greenstock, Research Fellow

BSc (Hons), PGCert, PhD

Louise's multi-disciplinary background has developed from her studies in Psychology, Education and Allied Health Sciences. After completing a degree in Psychology and Post Graduate Certificate in Social Science, she went on to conduct her PhD research exploring inter-professional working among practitioners from Health and Education services working together in school settings in the UK. Her PhD findings led to the development of a unique theoretical framework depicting inter-professional working which is transferable to a range of professional groups and contexts.

Louise's current research interests are related to inter-professional working in Health services and training and professional development and career pathways of these groups of professionals. She has worked in a number of further and higher educational institutions in the UK and now at the University of Melbourne. She has also worked in a range of early years school settings.   

Ms. Amie Bingham, Research Assistant

BSc, BA (Hons), MPH, PhD in progress (Social determinants of sexual health), University of Melbourne

Amie joined AHWI as a research assistant, having spent two years working in a similar role at the Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne.  There, she was involved in a number of projects related to general practice education and training, as well as contributing to research aimed primarily at issues related to the health of marginalised and hard-to-reach populations. Amie is currently conducting PhD research into social determinants of sexual health. Amie has experience in both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis.  Her research interests include social determinants of health, health systems, and primary health care.  The training of GPs and their subsequent role in health systems has been a particular focus: relevant past projects have included the development and evaluation of an RTP curriculum, and exploring influences on registrars’ RACGP examination results. Amie is currently working closely with the Victorian General Practice Liaison Network and General Practice Victoria on a number of projects.

Ms. Gina Bloom, Research Assistant

BA (Hons, University Medal, Sydney), M.Phil (summa cum laude, Cambridge), Graduate Certificate in Statistics (UNSW), BA Holistic Counselling (Phoenix Institute, part time, in progress)

Gina has worked in the field of healthcare research since the early 90s, conducting large scale studies for organisations including the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, Medicare Australia, the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Divisions of General Practice, NGOs and pharmaceutical and medical device companies. She has a deep understanding of the Australian healthcare context through conducting research with the gamut of Australian healthcare professionals and health care consumers in relation to diverse issues, conditions and initiatives. She specialises in the fields of mental health and indigenous health and is particularly interested in how a mutual sharing of experience and wisdom can improve both indigenous health outcomes and western healthcare practices.  

Gina is based jointly at the Australian Health Workforce Institute (AHWI) and the Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit, working on the ‘Education for Equity’ Project, an international collaboration between Australia, New Zealand and Canada, funded for 4 years under an International Collaborative Indigenous Health Research Partnership grant (ICIHRP).

Ms. Louise Freijser, Research Assistant
BSc. Nursing, Victoria University of Technology, MPH in progress, University of Melbourne

Louise previously worked as an intensive care nurse and has recently joined AHWI as a research assistant whilst undertaking a Masters in Public Health.

Dr. Indrajit Hazarika, Probationary PhD Candidate, Australian Health Workforce Institute, University of Melbourne

Dr Indrajit Hazarika is a public health practitioner with over 10 years of multi-sectoral and cross-cultural experiencein a variety of health challenges in urban, rural and tribal parts of India. He has worked on a number of national and international assignments related to program delivery in the spheres of infectious diseases, maternal and child health, urban health and health systems. This includes work with the World Health Organisation as a consultant for the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP). In this capacity, he provided technical support to the TB program in the state of Chhattisgarh and was responsible for consolidating DOTS services and building capacity of program officials at both District and State level. 

Dr Hazarika has considerable field exposure to public health delivery mechanism at all levels, and has worked with civil society groups as well as with the Government. His previous assignments also included work with Medecins Sans Frontieres, serving in hard-to-reach areas of India.  

Indrajit received his MPH from Harvard School of Public Health, and MD (Internal Medicine) and MBBS degrees from Gauhati Medical College, Assam. He has also done a certificate course in “Infectious Disease Epidemiology in Developing Countries” from HSPH, USA.

Prior to starting his PhD, Indrajit was working as an Assistant Professor with the Indian Institute of Public Health-Delhi. At the Institute he had been involved with research, education and technical assistance.

He has been keenly involved in the design and delivery of training programs and has engaged himself in applied public health research on topics relevant to the global context. He has also been actively involved with health projects run by Boston University and University of Melbourne in India.

His main areas of work are health human resources, infectious diseases, reproductive health and health system research.