As a clinician and more recently as an academic and researcher, Rachel’s work focuses on building registered nurse capacity for advanced nurse practice in a range of different contexts.   

Her academic and research activities are informed by wide-ranging clinical experience across several decades, including work in primary health care in Madagascar and the Solomon Islands and clinical, teaching and research experience in public health, general practice and mental health settings in urban and rural areas of New South Wales, Australia. Rachel continues clinical practice as a credentialed mental health nurse and therapist at the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service.

While employed as an academic at the University of Newcastle, Rachel developed and implemented the curriculum for a Master of Mental Health Nursing (Nurse Practitioner) program and revised the Master of Nursing (Nurse Practitioner) program. She then led these programs through the accreditation process required by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council for graduates to be eligible for endorsement to practice as Nurse Practitioners. She has extensive experience in subject and course development at several universities, including the University of Sharjah and now at Charles Sturt University.

Rachel’s research activities in Australia, Thailand, Egypt, East Africa and the United Arab Emirates include capacity building activities in cross-cultural settings, health promotion and early intervention, mindfulness-based interventions (MBSR and DBT), competency-based nursing curriculum, developing nursing capacity for advanced practice, clinical practice development, mental health literacy and mental health workforce development.

From mid-2017, Rachel  led a team of nursing researchers in a multi-stage research project commissioned by Parkinson’s NSW.  In collaboration with clinician researchers from the Mid-North Coast Local Health district, the project focused on evaluating the impact of specialist Parkinson’s nurses working in rural and regional NSW.  This findings from this three phase project have been successfully used by Parkinson's NSW to advocate for improved access to specialist nursing services for people living in rural and regional NSW. 

This initial research has resulted in further collaborative activities focused on developing and evaluating specialist Movement Disorder Nurse positions across Australia.