Healthcare Consumer, Research Officer and PhD Candidate, Centre for Health Communication and Participation, La Trobe University; Australia

Louisa is a healthcare consumer, health professional, university lecturer and researcher who is currently working as a research officer, lecturer and PhD candidate at the Centre for Health Communication and Participation, La Trobe University. Louisa’s professional background is as a physiotherapist, with diverse experience in tertiary health, community health, and the not-for-profit sector, in clinical and project management roles. An interest in health communication led Louisa to undertake a Master of Strategic Communication at La Trobe University, which evolved into her current PhD project exploring how social media can be used to facilitate consumer engagement in Australian public hospital service design and quality improvement. As a person with cystic fibrosis who had a double lung transplant in 2010, Louisa also has lifelong experience as a healthcare consumer, and has held consumer representative roles with Consumers Health Forum of Australia, Heart and Lung Transplant Trust Victoria and Cystic Fibrosis Victoria.