Our team is made up of a group of passionate and inspiring individuals that share a common goal to provide every woman with universal access to high quality continuity of care.
Governance +
Transforming Maternity Care Collaborative is governed by an influential Board of Directors, who each bring a wealth of experience, networks and knowledge to the organisation.
Program Leads +
Professor Jenny Gamble -Director Transforming Maternity Care CollaborativeProfessor Jenny Gamble is an inspirational, visionary leader who has campaigned throughout her career for the reform of maternity services to focus on the needs of women.
Professor Gamble is an internationally renowned and highly awarded researcher and educator. She is a long-standing, active member of the Australian College of Midwives (ACM) having held State and National executive positions including State and National President. Professor Gamble is actively engaged in several health service and community committees and boards.
Professor Gamble is a Churchill Fellow and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
Associate Professor Emily Callander -Deputy Director Transforming Maternity Care CollaborativeAssociate Professor Emily Callander is a health economist specialising in maternal and early childhood health economics. She is passionate about equity and access issues and ensuring efficiency in the delivery of women-centred health care.
Associate Professor Callander developed Australia’s first model of patient costs and outcomes based on linked administrative data for mothers and babies. She has also undertaken internationally leading microsimulation modelling, which has been presented at the National Press Club, and annual presentations to the Commonwealth Treasury and Department of Health.
Her research on out-of-pocket expenditure in Australia has also been directly cited by the Shadow Minister for Health, and consistently generates media interest with articles in mainstream outlets, including Money Magazine and the Australian Financial Review.
Associate Professor Callander is currently leading the health economics evaluation components of three large NHMRC Project Grants related to perinatal care, plus the health economic component of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Stillbirth (GNT1116640). She has held continuous NHMRC funding throughout her career, and currently holds a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship, which focuses on measuring value in maternal health care.
Associate Professor Callander has been a guest member of the PBAC Economics Sub-Committee since 2017.
Associate Professor Mary Sidebotham -Deputy Director Transforming Maternity Care CollaborativeAssociate Professor Mary Sidebotham is internationally recognised as an inspirational leader in promoting midwifery workforce capability and sustainability.
Associate Professor Sidebotham is passionate about transforming maternity care through a social emancipatory approach and is committed to the development of education programs that facilitate transformative learning.
She has held a number of leadership roles across Europe and Australia and brings a global perspective to Transforming Maternity Care Collaborative.
Associate Professor Sidebotham holds several Ministerial appointments on health-related Australian regulatory boards, committees and tribunals. She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA).
Professor Rhona McInnes -Director for Practice TranslationRhona McInnes is Professor of Maternal & Child Health, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Griffith University and Gold Coast Health Service.
Professor Rhona McInnes’s research is in the fields of maternal and child health, public health, midwifery and models of care and reducing inequalities. She has a strong focus on optimising women’s infant feeding experiences and using co-production approaches to improving health outcomes. Rhona recently relocated from Scotland where she led a realist evaluation of implementing the Scottish Government policy for continuity of carer in one health board area.
Her current research is a realist informed evaluation of the response of maternal, newborn and child health services to COVID-19. The findings will be used to strengthen services to ensure access to high quality care and to inform preparedness for future pandemic scenarios.
Associate Professor Christine Catling -Director of WorkforceAssociate Professor Christine Catling is a midwifery academic and an NHMRC Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney. She is also the Co-lead of the Maternal, Newborn and Women's Clinical Academic Group, for the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE). She has been a midwife for over 25 years, both in the UK and Australia.
Associate Professor Catling has extensive experience in antenatal education, policy development and research, and has published on workforce issues, homebirth, vaginal birth after caesarean section, maternal mortality, vaginal breech birth, maternal and child health in Papua New Guinea, simulation-based learning and vitamin D levels in mothers and neonates. In 2015 she was the inaugural research fellow for the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre at UTS. Her PhD explored the influences on women who chose a publicly-funded home birth in Australia, and current work focusses on the workplace culture in midwifery.
Associate Professor Catling believes research, innovation and good quality midwifery are pivotal to the well-being of mothers and young families. Her NHMRC Fellowship (2021-2025) focuses on the midwifery workplace culture, examining the use of regular Group Clinical Supervision for midwives.
Professor Lois McKellar -Director of EducationLois is an Associate Professor of Midwifery, having been the Program Director for the Bachelor of Midwifery at the University of South Australia for many years. Lois is committed to the advancement of midwifery practice through adaptive leadership, reflective practice and hard work, driven by deeply held values. She is an advocate for working collaboratively to ensure the provision of outstanding midwifery education and equipping midwives for practice in the 21st century and beyond. Lois is a Fellow of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation, a founding member and current chair of Trans-Tasman Midwifery Education Consortium and a member of Australian College of Midwives.
Dr Zoe Bradfield -Co-Director Health PromotionDr Zoe Bradfield is a Midwifery Academic and Research Fellow with a joint appointment between Curtin University and King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a nurse and midwife, working across a variety of rural and metropolitan settings in Western Australia.
Dr Bradfield is a vibrant midwifery leader delivering excellence in education, research and professional leadership. Her leadership in education is offered through her role as a midwifery academic at Curtin University in Western Australia, which has been recognised and awarded for delivering excellence.
Leadership in research is offered in her role as Midwifery Research Fellow where she undertakes research and builds capacity in clinical staff supporting quality improvement and research activities. Dr Bradfield’s research strength is based in her understanding of the transformative power of quality maternity care which has fuelled her passion for inspiring excellence in health practitioners; and leading innovative, translational research that contributes to better outcomes for women, their families and society.
Professional leadership and service is delivered in her role as the Vice President of the Australian College of Midwives, the peak professional body for Midwifery in Australia.
Professor Debra Creedy -Co-Director Health PromotionProfessor Debra Creedy is a nurse and psychologist, and Professor of Perinatal Mental Health with the School of Nursing and Midwifery. At Transforming Maternity Care Collaborative, Professor Creedy is leading the Health Promotion Program and contributing to others.
Professor Creedy has conducted maternity and education research for the past 30 years. Her clinical research involves testing the effectiveness of counselling interventions to assist distressed childbearing women.
Professor Creedy also conducts education research to promote student learning and promote quality teaching. She is a member of the Cultural Capability Measurement team in the First Peoples Health Unit and is supervising two PhD students conducting research in this area.
An independent analysis recently ranked Professor Creedy in the Top Ten of highly cited scholars in education amongst full professors of nursing and midwifery in Australia and NZ. She has supervised 22 PhD students to successful completion and has examined 39 theses.
Professor Creedy is co-author of the text, Health & Human Behaviour, and has over 250 book chapters and journal articles.
Project Leads +
Professor Kathleen Baird -Domestic and Family ViolenceProfessor Kathleen Baird is Professor of Midwifery in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at University of Technology, Sydney.
Professor Baird’s research has a strong focus on the health response to domestic and family violence and women’s health. She is a recognised regional, national and international leader in domestic and family violence and her expertise in this area has led to numerous invitations as a keynote speaker at national and international conferences as well as government forums.
Her research has influenced policy and practice, and led to cultural and practice changes within the health sector both in the UK and Australia. Professor Baird holds two ministerial appointments as a Board member of Queensland Domestic and Family Violence Implementation Council and Deputy Chair of the Queensland Domestic and Family Death and Homicide Review Board.
Dr Jyai Allen -Practice Translation and Health PromotionDr Jyai Allen has worked as a midwife, clinical facilitator, researcher and most recently as Senior Lecturer for Griffith University where she teaches a postgraduate course in qualitative research methods and undertakes translational research. As a direct result of her work, changes have been implemented that substantially improve women’s experience of childbirth at the largest maternity hospital in Australia including midwifery continuity of carer in the public antenatal clinic, access to waterbirth, and adoption of an innovative breastfeeding method.
Dr Allen has obtained four competitive grants, published 13 high-impact papers including in The Lancet, and a recent chapter in a required textbook for Australian and New Zealand midwifery students – Midwifery continuity of care to specific groups. Since 2017, Jyai has been an Associate Editor for Women and Birth. She regularly reviews papers across several international journals and was recently recognised by Midwifery as an expert reviewer.
Her emerging research program Breastfeeding Impact: 5-paths approach includes: (1) midwifery-led services and facilities; (2) spontaneous labour at term; (3) access to non-pharmacological analgesia in labour; (4) facilitation of spontaneous vaginal birth; and (5) optimising mother-baby interaction.
Dr Kirsten Small -Enablers and barriers to the reform of maternity servicesKirsten Small is a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist, who works as an educator, writer, researcher, and clinician. Her vision is to promote and protect respectful maternity care for women, babies, families, and their care providers through education and research. Kirsten's research work to date has considered midwifery prescribing in Australia, and investigated issues of interprofessional power in maternity care in relation to intrapartum fetal heart rate monitoring.
Our Partners +
