Dr Pauletta Irwin PFHEA is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Paramedicine and Healthcare Sciences at Charles Sturt University. A Principal Fellow of Advance HE, Pauletta is a nationally and internationally recognised leader in healthcare simulation, digital health education, and reflective practice. She brings over two decades of experience across academic and clinical contexts, with a sustained focus on innovation, inclusion, and impact.

Pauletta holds a PhD in Nursing from Southern Cross University, where her research on learning in virtual environments laid the foundation for her enduring commitment to transforming health professional education. She has played a strategic role in developing simulation frameworks and is the creator of SPROUT, a widely adopted reflective practice tool, and HealthiERSim®, an award-recognised simulated electronic health record platform that builds digital capability and clinical reasoning in over 3,000 students annually.

Her work bridges theory and practice to support student readiness, professional identity formation, and digital confidence. Her leadership has been acknowledged through institutional awards, national collaboration, and sector-wide uptake, and her PFHEA recognition underscores her strategic and sustained contributions to inclusive, future-focused health education.

Dr Irwin’s research is driven by a deep commitment to equity, access, and innovation in healthcare and education, particularly for those living in rural and regional communities. Her work is positioned at the intersection of digital health, simulation-based learning, reflective practice, ageing, and rural health systems, with an overarching goal of improving outcomes for populations traditionally underserved by mainstream services.

A central thread in Pauletta’s research is exploring how technology can be used to connect—to connect people to services, students to practice, and educators to innovation. She is particularly focused on how digital tools can improve access to healthcare and education for older adults and geographically isolated populations. Her research on ageing in place and the healthcare needs of community-dwelling older people in rural areas informs broader discussions about sustainable care, workforce development, and service design.

Pauletta is a highly collaborative researcher, known for building and leading large, cross-disciplinary teams that draw on the strengths of colleagues across nursing, computing, business, education, and social sciences. Her projects are intentionally designed to foster capability and leadership across sectors, with a strong emphasis on mentoring early career researchers and HDR students. She values co-design, responsiveness to community needs, and scholarly rigour, with research partnerships often extending beyond the university sector.

She has previously been awarded funding to investigate the barriers and facilitators to conducting research in clinical environments and has led several initiatives that bridge academic research and real-world practice. As a Co-Chief Investigator on a NSW Mental Health Commission project, she helped develop a nationally recognised digital health literacy resource, which was endorsed by the World Health Organization as a demonstration project. These initiatives reflect her sustained interest in health system responsiveness, accessibility, and the responsible use of technology.

As Research Theme Lead for EduHealthTech, Pauletta is at the forefront of projects that explore how to ensure human connection is maintained in increasingly digital learning environments. These include initiatives to improve simulation-based learning, support reflective practice, and embed sustainability principles into health education. Her work deliberately keeps a focus on “not losing sight of touch”—the emotional, relational, and ethical dimensions of healthcare.

Her leadership of innovations such as HealthiERSim®, a custom-built simulated electronic health record, demonstrates how she strategically harnesses technology to strengthen students’ readiness for practice, reduce rural workforce disparities, and shape future-focused health education across institutional and sectoral boundaries.

Dr Irwin is a dedicated and forward-thinking educator whose teaching philosophy centres on fostering curiosity, connection, and contemporary practice. She has been nationally recognised for innovation in simulation-based education and curriculum design that develops both clinical proficiency and professional identity.

As Simulation Lead for the School of Nursing, Paramedicine and Healthcare Sciences, Pauletta is driving the School’s strategic simulation direction, with a focus on increasing students’ access to authentic, safe learning environments. Her approach is designed to build critical skills for interprofessional collaboration, promote reflective practice, and ensure students are work-ready and capable of responding to the complex challenges of modern healthcare.

A key initiative underpinning this vision is HealthiERSim®, a simulated electronic health records program developed to embed digital health capability into the curriculum. The platform enables students to safely practise clinical decision-making, documentation, and patient-centred care in dynamic, real-world scenarios. HealthiERSim® now supports over 3,000 students annually and has gained national recognition as a scalable, pedagogically grounded innovation.

Pauletta is also the creator of SPROUT, a structured reflective practice tool adopted across multiple undergraduate and postgraduate programs. SPROUT’s uptake has extended beyond nursing into clinical settings and other disciplines, such as exercise physiology, where it supports critical reflection and lifelong learning. These initiatives reflect her commitment to providing high-quality, future-focused learning experiences that prepare students for evolving health contexts.

She is a pedagogical leader in healthcare education, contributing to scholarly teaching through supervision of interdisciplinary research projects and mentorship of early career academics. Her work includes leading and co-investigating research on topics such as interprofessional education, AI in clinical practice, sustainability in simulation, feedback literacy, and digital learning ethics. Her teaching scholarship has resulted in conference presentations, Q1 journal publications, Teaching Academy-funded projects, and cross-campus program rollouts.

Pauletta also contributes to higher degree research supervision, academic writing development, and the design of student engagement initiatives, such as protected writing sessions that support undergraduate students’ academic identity and skill development. Her work ensures that scholarship and teaching are interwoven, evidence-based, and deeply attuned to the ethical, emotional, and relational dimensions of health education.

Pauletta’s professional experience spans critical care nursing, paediatrics, aged care, and health services research. She has held leadership roles across multiple universities including Simulation Coordinator, Head of Teaching and Learning, and Simulation Lead. Her strategic contributions have resulted in the development of simulation frameworks, reflective practice curricula, and collaborative research partnerships across disciplines and institutions.

She serves on the executive of the Australian Society for Simulation in Healthcare (ASSH), and contributes to scholarly review panels and funding bodies. Pauletta’s collaborative style and future-focused mindset have positioned her as a leader in simulation-based education and digital innovation for healthcare workforce development.