Dr Kristen Smith

Research Director Indigenous Studies Unit, Senior Research Fellow

Available for postgraduate supervision including Honours, Masters or Doctoral research.

Dr Kristen Smith is a medical anthropologist whose interdisciplinary work traverses the fields of anthropology, epidemiology, human geography, public health and health promotion. Her unique ability to contribute to health research centres on her innovative, ground-breaking work in Australian Indigenous medical anthropology, policy analysis, data analysis and complex multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological development. Kristen works collaboratively across academic, government, Aboriginal community controlled and not-for-profit sectors, applying participatory methods framed by medical anthropology, rights-based and public health frameworks. Her distinct specialisation in data interpretation across qualitative and quantitative domains is profoundly relevant to improving outcomes in Indigenous health.

Kristen has an extensive history of implementing large multi-sited projects on Indigenous alcohol management in Northern Australia, Indigenous digital health ICTs and family violence with regional, remote and very remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Her expertise of diverse mixed-methods research with Indigenous Australians in challenging research environments has led the translation of her collaboratively informed research findings into policy change and resource prioritisation. Kristen's diverse research expertise also includes the investigation of international health inequities, hospital ethnography, critical health systems research and medical tourism in India.