HDR Supervisor of the Month

Associate Professor Brett Scholz
Tuckwell Fellow
School of Medicine and Psychology 
ANU College of Health and Medicine

Brett's supervisory approach:
"Supervision is one of the great privileges of an academic career, and I feel fortunate to be a part of supporting HDR students to use research to improve health systems through being more critical, more constructive, and more considered. My own research program is about developing lived experience leadership across the health system, and so my approach to research supervision is concerned with preparing HDR students with tools to build the health sector of the future in which the power imbalances between health professionals working from mainstream disciplinary perspectives and those working from lived experience perspectives are redressed.

I consider myself lucky to have worked with HDR students on such a diverse range of projects over the years. A common thread running through these projects is about building capacity for inclusive leadership. An inclusive health system is one in which power imbalances are redressed (or at the very least acknowledged) and in which patients’ experiential expertise is considered as important as health disciplinary knowledge. I endeavour to model the kind of leadership that creates inclusive environments, such that students develop their own leadership styles based on inclusivity. To me, inclusive leadership is all about making space for others’ expertise to shine. In a supervision context this could involve nominating students for academic roles, encouraging students to take advantage of funding or conference opportunities, inviting students to be part of research and authorship teams, or even as simple as enjoying a matcha together to celebrate wins big and small."

Find out more about Brett’s work by visiting Brett's profile webpage on the Researchers website.