Professor Sheree Smith

Professor Sheree Smith was appointed as Director of the Family and Community Health University Research Group, University of Western Sydney and Professor of Nursing in 2011.

Professor Smith has received a number of national and international research awards.  Sheree was awarded the inaugural CRC for Asthma and Asthma Australia PhD top-up scholarship for research in health education and health promotion.  On completion of her PhD, she was awarded the first international post doctoral research capability bursary to the University of Oxford’s Department of Primary Health Care and Centre for Evidence Based Medicine where she worked with Professors Paul Glasziou and David Mant. Sheree subsequently joined the Imperial Clinical Respiratory Research Unit and the Department of Respiratory Infection and Medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, London and was awarded the Millennium Bursary from the Worshipful Company of Curriers for her work in COPD intermediate care research.  Professor Smith remains a MCR of Wolfson College, Oxford and is a member of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, American Thoracic Society and the European Respiratory Society.

Sheree has held Senior Research Fellowships with Imperial Clinical Research Unit and the Lung Institute of Western Australia and continues to work with colleagues in these multidisciplinary research units.  Professor Smith' areas of research interest include health technology; health behaviour associated with infection; dyspnoea; pain; respiratory health care service delivery in acute and community settings and health education and clinical interventions associated with chronic conditions using quantitative and qualitative study designs.

Professor Smith has recently been awarded a Visiting Professorship in the Centre for Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Division of Experimental Medicine of Imperial College London and continues to work with Professor Derek Bell, Imperial College London’s NIHR Collaborative for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) based at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London.  Sheree’s professional leadership can be evidenced through the various positions she has held on committees and councils of national and international organisations associated with respiratory conditions that have been responsible for setting national and international policy and guidelines for clinical care such as the National Asthma Council and Australian Lung Foundation. 

Sheree's health technology research expertise is utilised through council membership of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Telemedicine and E-Health Council and as a peer reviewer for journals such as the BMJ, Thorax, Journal of Sleep Research, Indian Journal of Medical Research and Journal of Clinical Nursing.  She currently reviews grant applications for research boards such as NHMRC, Auckland District Health Board, Asthma Australia, NIHR (UK) and was a Healthcare Prioritisation panel member for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council UK.  Professor Smith currently hold positions on two online journals’ editorial boards and is an advocate for high quality research and the development of the next generation of nurse clinicians and academics.

This information has been contributed by Professor Smith.