Our Board of Directors
Dr. Renee Fiolet
President
Renee Fiolet it a Research Fellow with the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence at the University of Melbourne. Renee’s research focus is on Indigenous health, family violence, trauma and technologically-facilitated abuse. As a nurse, she has worked in women’s health, pediatrics, community health and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health for the last twenty years. Renee also Chairs the Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre, is Conference Chair for the Australasian Association for Academic Primary Care, and committee member of the Barwon South-West Dhelk Dja Action Group.
Dr. Nick Metheny
Vice President
Dr Metheny is an Assistant Professor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University. His research addresses intimate partner violence in women and sexual and gender minorities globally as well as post-sexual assault nursing care in low-resource settings.
Dr. Elizabeth (Liz) Reeves-Tomlinson
Treasurer
Dr Reeves-Tomlinson efforts focus on improving health care experiences for survivors of violence, particularly those who experience layered health disparities associated with race, socioeconomic status, and other social determinants of health. She strives wherever possible to integrate community-engaged research and principles of health equity. She is proud to begin my role this year as NNVAWI’s treasurer; the organization and its collective body of research are so important to her as a nurse scientist and to the violence survivors, health care providers, and the friends, families, and communities impacted by violence
Dr. Shahin Kassam
Secretary
Dr Kassam is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia, School of Nursing, Capacity Research Unit and comes from a public health nursing background. Her program of research centres on the impacts of forced migration on women’s health. Such impacts include gender-based violence (GBV), social exclusion, and racial discrimination. Shahin works toward structural integration of trauma-and-violence informed principles while engaging in multi-sectoral, community-based partnerships across local and international spheres. Through her research, Shahin works toward inclusion of women living within intersections of gender, race, class, and migrant status. Shahin’s work is immersed within a research unit dedicated to supporting the human rights and safety of women impacted by #GBV.
Dr. Leesa Hooker
Immediate Past President
Dr Leesa Hooker is a nurse/midwife academic and Research Fellow at the Judith Lumley Centre at La Trobe University, leading the Maternal and Child Health nursing research area within the Centre. She has established expertise in the epidemiology of family violence, women’s mental and reproductive health and parenting. Her research includes intervention trials, observation studies and systematic reviews with a focus on improving maternal and child health outcomes, and the healthcare service response to abused women and children.