Academy Leadership Team
The leaders of the Sydney Health Partners Implementation Science Academy combine their extensive clinical and academic experience to help bridge the research-practice gap
The interdisciplinary collaboration that drives the Implementation Science Academy aims to balance the clinical and the academic at all stages. Our leadership team all have comprehensive experience as clinicians as well as researchers.
A/Prof Leanne Hassett
Leanne Hassett (PhD; MHlthSc(NeuroPHTY); BAppSc(PHTY)) is an Associate Professor in Physiotherapy in the Sydney School of Health Sciences, University of Sydney and Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, a partnership between the University of Sydney and Sydney Local Health District, and part of the University’s Sydney Musculoskeletal Health Flagship Centre (0.6FTE).
Leanne also leads the Capacity and Capability Implementation Science initiative within Sydney Health Partners, an accredited National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre, incorporating five major health services, The University of Sydney, and 11 affiliated medical research institutes (0.4FTE). A/Prof Hassett is a current member of the steering committee of the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro).
A/Prof Hassett conducts research to test the effectiveness of interventions to improve mobility and physical activity in older adults and adults living with disability and to evaluate the implementation of effective interventions into practice.
She is a previous NHMRC Translating Research into Practice (TRIP) Fellow and currently leads two national Australian grants as CIA, one national partnership grant as CIB, all supporting implementation studies to implement physical activity promotion within the healthcare system to increase physical activity in older adults and adults living with disability.
A/Prof Heather Shepherd
A/Prof Heather Shepherd BA (Hons) RN DipHE PhD is a Senior Lecturer in the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Sydney, and an Implementation Science Lead with Sydney Health Partners Implementation Science Program focussed on capacity and collaboration building between academic and clinical spaces.
Her research and teaching roles are founded on her expertise as a health communication and health services researcher and her clinical background in critical care, reproductive and sexual health nursing, and health services management; currently leading teaching within Sydney Nursing School on quality and safety in healthcare, social determinants of health, and building curricula on health literacy, implementation science and quality improvement.
A/Prof Shepherd’s research focuses on implementation science, shared decision-making, doctor/patient communication, evidence-based medicine, health professionals’ perspectives, and development and evaluation tools to support health literacy and empowerment.
She is engaged in research collaborations with the Sydney Health Literacy lab and the Psycho-oncology Co-operative Research Group. Her research skills include design and coordination of multicentre trials, qualitative and quantitative methods.
A/Prof Shepherd shares her expertise through teaching and postgraduate supervision through development of content within, public health and primary care and allied health curricula, and as a PhD Supervisor in the fields of health literacy, shared decision making and implementation science.
Dr Mitchell Sarkies
Dr Mitchell Sarkies is a Senior Lecturer and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the Sydney School of Health Sciences. He leads the Innovation and Methods Stream for the Sydney Health Partners Implementation Science Program and is a member of the Academic Implementation Science Network, which supports advancements in the science of implementation in health.
Dr Sarkies is a health services researcher and implementation scientist with a clinical background in physiotherapy.
He also leads multiple programs of research harnessing implementation science and complexity science to enhance evidence-informed models of care of hip fracture; developing an implementation strategy for improving the detection of familial hypercholesterolaemia; implementing a primary-tertiary shared care model for scaling up genetic medicine; and implementation of evidence and consensus-based perioperative care pathways to reduce unwarranted clinical variation in elective surgery.
Dr Zoe Szewczyk
Dr Zoe Szewczyk is a health economist with a background in nutrition and dietetics. She is currently working as a Research Fellow in the Prevention Research Collaboration, Sydney School of Public Health and her area of research is health economic evaluation of population health and health services interventions, their implementation, and scale-up.
Prior to joining The University of Sydney, Dr Szewczyk worked as a manager in the Health Economics and Social Policy team at Deloitte, and as a Health Research Economist at the Hunter Medical Research Institute.
Since joining The University of Sydney in April 2023, Dr Szewczyk has partnered with government, industry, health service, and academic partners on a range of projects. Including, an evaluation of the Get Healthy Service, a scaled-up chronic disease prevention telehealth program in partnership with the NSW Ministry of Health, Centre for Population Health; a scaled falls and loneliness prevention intervention with the Active Aging Research Team, University of British Columbia; and a range of oral health screening and promotion interventions for infants to older adults, in partnership with the Sydney Dental School.
Prof Andrew Baillie
Andrew Baillie is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Allied Health with Sydney Local Health District. He works with Allied Health Research and Education for Translation and Innovation within SLHD to build Allied Health Research Capacity.
Professor Baillie convenes the Academic Implementation Science Network for Sydney Health Partners, and the Long-COVID Australia Collaboration. He collaborates with the Matilda Centre for Research in Substance use and Mental Health, the Edith Collins Centre (Translational Research in Alcohol Drugs and Toxicology), and the Sydney Institute of Women Children and their Families.
Professor Baillie also works with Drug Health Services at RPA and the Psychology Team at RPAVirtual.
