Staff
NCETA's staff come from a range of health and human service backgrounds, including public health, psychology, sociology, education, medicine, nursing, information management, administration and pharmacy. This page provides further details about individual staff members, including contact details and information on their current projects.
Professor Billie Bonevski joined NCETA in 2021 as Interim Director and is a health behaviour scientist and Professor of Public Health at Flinders University.
Billie has been Chief Investigator (CI) on over $30M of funding consisting of $19M in Category 1 grants, $6M in Category 2-4 grants and $3.7M in University research centre and commissioned research funding. She is CI on 19 NHMRC grants, CIA on 9 of those, representing continuous NHMRC funding over the last 10 years. In 2020 she was part of an international consortia awarded a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for Achieving Tobacco Endgame (CIB and Deputy Director, 2020-2025).
Billie Bonevski’s research is highly translational. Her research for the landmark Cancer Council NSW Supportive Care Needs Project has been cited over 900 times and led to the introduction of routine distress screening in oncology treatment centres, financial assistance for carers and improved chemotherapy waiting rooms. The Supportive Care Needs survey that Billie developed and validated has been translated into 11 languages for use globally. More recently, Billie led the research program accompanying the Cancer Council’s Tackling Tobacco Program to reduce smoking among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, the biggest cancer prevention investment made by the Cancer Council NSW in its history. The research led to implementation of Tackling Tobacco Program in >200 community social services in NSW, and now in Victoria, WA and Queensland, reaching >28,000 service clients (featured in 2017/18 CCNSW Annual Report). Her systematic review led to a Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (USA) recommendation for online smoking cessation programs, and her research into reactions of high-risk groups to plain cigarette packs was cited in UK and German parliamentary bids for plain packaging.
Dr Janine Chapman is a senior academic at the National Centre for Education and Training on Addition (NCETA). Her background is in health psychology and public health. She has expertise in theoretical approaches to understanding and changing health behaviour, and systems-based approaches to improving health and safety risk management outcomes in organisations. Her work focuses on the translation of evidence-based research into practice within society and industry, to influence action for change in priority areas.
Janine has designed and evaluated interventions in a range of settings, from workplace health programs to online, consumer-directed tools to improve the uptake and maintenance of health-promoting lifestyles. She has broad experience of conducting research relating to chronic disease prevention, work and fitness-for-duty issues, and ongoing support needs in clinical and at-risk populations. She is interested in workforce development and how the domains of work and life intersect to shape behavioural outcomes across the lifespan.
Janine holds a PhD in health psychology and a MSc in psychological research from the University of Sheffield, UK. She has a diploma in counselling from the University of Derby, UK, and is a certified fitness professional.
Ph: 08 8201 8472
E: janine.chapman@flinders.
edu.au
M: 0422 684 475
E: ken.pidd@flinders.edu.au
Associate Professor Ken Pidd has been associated with NCETA since 1999. He holds a PhD in psychology which addressed the area of work-related alcohol and other drug (AOD) use of adolescent apprentices and has an ongoing research interest in this area. Ken has produced numerous publications concerning the workplace and AOD use and provides consultancy and advice on this issue to government and non-government organisations, unions, employer groups, and individual employers. His other research and practice interests include training quality and training transfer, and workforce recruitment and retention.
Prior to working with NCETA he worked for a number of years in the construction and mining industries in roles which included an occupational health and safety officer, trainer, and manager of a AOD safety and rehabilitation program for the South Australian Construction Industry.
Stacey Appleton is the Finance Officer at NCETA. She joined in November 2005. Her role is to the day-to-day management of the financial affairs of NCETA. In this capacity, Stacey maintains records of expenditure and produces the financial reports and budgets for all NCETA projects.
Prior to working at NCETA, Stacey worked as an Administration Manager in various medium size businesses in the building and manufacturing industries. She has had 15 years experience of working in administration and accounts.
Ph: 08 8201 7578
E: stacey.appleton@flinders.
edu.au
E: vinita.duraisingam@flinders
.edu.au
Ms Vinita Duraisingam - is a Senior Research Officer and has has been with NCETA since March 2004, commencing as a placement student while undertaking her postgraduate studies and subsequently employed as a research assistant upon graduation. She is now a registered psychologist and project manager, with over 15 years of experience in drug and alcohol-related research, evaluation and workforce development. She is particularly interested in workforce issues, including employee health and well-being, drug and alcohol use among workers, career development and workforce sustainability.
Vinita has a Master’s in Organisational Psychology from the University of South Australia. Her previous work experience has been in the areas of journalism, public relations and marketing. She is currently located in Perth, Western Australia.
Dr Jane Fischer is a Research Fellow at the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA), Flinders University. Her research interests are focused upon reducing harm associated with alcohol and other drug use; quality of life; and vulnerable populations, particularly women.
Dr Fischer was appointed to her current position in 2012. Prior to her appointment at Flinders University, Dr Fischer was the Program Manager for the Centre for Drug and Alcohol Studies, Queensland Health, responsible for supporting the design, delivery and evaluation of alcohol and other drug translational research projects. Dr Fischer has held a broad range of positions in her over twenty years’ working in the Australian alcohol and other drug (AOD) sector. During this time she has been principal and co-investigator on a number of local, state and national competitive and commissioned research grants, primarily in the area of translational research, outcome measures and AOD workforce development.
Ph: 08 8201 7692
E: jane.fischer@flinders.edu.au
Ph: 08 8201 9667
E: natalie.skinner@flinders.
edu.au
Dr Natalie Skinner is a Senior Research Fellow. Her areas of expertise are in organisational psychology and social psychology. Her specialist area is workforce development, addressing a wide range of areas including wellbeing in the workplace (stress, burnout, work-life balance, fatigue), organisational culture (including individual attitudes), workplace training and job quality (working hours, flexibility, work intensification).
She has also has a particular interest in connecting research and practice with a focus on promoting evidence-based policies and practices in industries, workplaces and work teams. Natalie holds a PhD in Psychology.
Ms Victoria Kostadinov joined NCETA in 2013 as a Senior Research Officer. She holds a Masters Degree in Organisational Psychology and Human Factors from the University of Adelaide, and was awarded the College of Organisational Psychologists' Award for Top Graduating Student in 2012.
Victoria’s primary research interests lie in the social determinants of alcohol and drug use, and particularly the role of the workplace. Her work at NCETA involves assisting in the development, planning, implementation and delivery of research projects.
Key projects which Victoria has been involved in include a Review of the Social Determinants of Inequities in Alcohol Consumption and Related Harms, and the National Alcohol and Drug Knowledgebase (NADK).
Ph: 8201 7576
E: victoria.kostadinov@flinders.
edu.au
Ph: 08 8201 7538
E: alice.mcentee@flinders.
edu.au
Dr Alice McEntee is a Research Fellow at NCETA and holds a PHD in Psychology. Alice has over 15 years experience in designing, conducting and evaluating research projects, predominately related to the social determinants of health. Alice previously worked as a Statistician at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as an Ethics and Compliance Officer at the University of South Australia, and as a Research Associate in various Colleges at Flinders University.
Alice has strong expertise in quantitative research methodology and data analysis techniques. Whilst at NCETA, Alice has been involved in survey design, data collection, statistical analysis and dissemination of results on various local, national and international research projects. Such projects have explored alcohol and drug use, public health and workforce development issues.
Ms Donna Hughes-Barton joined NCETA as a Research Officer in July 2020 following completion of her PhD. Donna has worked in behavioural science research for many years, most recently at Flinders University in the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer. Here she was responsible for managing a number of projects focussed on helping people learn about behaviours that they can modify to reduce their risk of chronic disease. Donna holds Masters degrees in both Clinical Psychology and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and in her PhD she combined the two fields to develop and assess the implementation of an English as a Second Language curriculum that introduced the Australian national guidelines for cancer prevention to new immigrants attending government-sponsored free English language courses.
E: donna.hughesbarton@
flinders.edu.au