Dr Cherie Lucas, the recipient of the AAUT Teaching and Learning Citation for the individual category, is a Senior Lecturer, Registered Pharmacist and a Councilor for the Pharmacy Council of NSW. From 2016-2021, Cherie was the Clinical Education Manager (placements) for the Master of Pharmacy and Master of Pharmacy (International) degrees at UTS. Currently Cherie is the Subject Coordinator for the Therapeutic Subjects (IT1 and IT2)

Her love of pharmacy as a profession began at the age of 14, with her first job as a pharmacy assistant. Since then, she has had a long career in a wide range of roles, including as a Grade 2 specialist clinical hospital pharmacist specialising in HIV/AIDS, as a community pharmacist-in-charge, a clinical research associate, broadcast pharmacy presenter, and working for the Arthritis Foundation of NSW.

“For me, this is not about titles. I started my PhD relatively late, in my mid 40s,” Cherie said.
“It’s about impact with the next generation of pharmacists”. Cherie was awarded the 2019 Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation- Individual Category for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.
“I love being able to guide them through the many different and changing dimensions of pharmacy in clinical practice such as blood pressure monitoring, vaccination training, mental health first aid training or to other aspects including instructing their development in reflective practice.

Her passion to teach inter-professional collaboration with other health professionals – nurses, physiotherapists, orthoptists, speech pathologists – led to several awards as project lead including: UTS Learning and Teaching Citation honours in 2018 and 2020; and a Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence: Innovation in learning and teaching also awarded in 2020.

“We can’t work in our silos,” Cherie said.
“It’s better to have that interaction, have that respect for other’s profession, and it’s really important to embed that in the curriculum.
“I love practice and have kept my registration and could see more work with professional associations in the future.
“But I came into academia because I really enjoy the interaction with students, as I love to guide, mentor them and provide them with opportunities based on my experience and knowledge
“I wish I had had that guidance when I was starting out.”

Dr Lucas is an internationally published researcher (91 publications and conference papers) with more than 54 First/Senior-author publications in peer-reviewed journals, co-authored two pharmacy book chapters with national and international collaborators; continues collaborative published research with Cardiff University, Wales, UK; University of Toronto, Canada; Long Island University, NY, USA, Nottingham, UK and has presented her research at national and international meetings including Boston, USA (2014), Italy (2015; 2017, 2019), Aberdeen, Scotland (2016), Leuven, Belgium (2018), Dublin, Ireland (2021- virtual conference).

Awards and National and International Recognition:

Dr Lucas is the recipient of the following teaching, learning, innovation, curriculum and research awards:
 2020 Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence in Innovation of Teaching and Learning as Team Leader
2020 University Award: Learning and Teaching Citation as Team Leader- RIPE-N project
 2019 NATIONAL RECOGNITION: Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation: for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning
 2018 Project Lead (Inter-professional Education and Inter-professional Collaboration) UTS Learning and Teaching Citation for RIPE (Reflective Inter-professional Education) model of learning
 2017 Teaching Innovation Award, Prato, Italy Pharmacy Symposium Conference
 2017 Best Full Paper Award: Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference, Vancouver, Canada (collaborative award Gibson et al. 2017)
 2015 Science Direct ’25 Top Hottest Articles’ Ranked Number 1 on the list (for the 3-month period Oct 2015-Dec 2015) for research lead in publication: "Learning Styles and Approaches: Can Reflective Strategies Encourage Deep Learning?" (Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning)


Dr Cherie Lucas has been the primary supervisor and/or co-supervisor for the following research students
Current PhD student:
Carley Jans 2023

Completed Primary Supervision of PhD Students:

Mariyam Aly (UTS) 2019-2021 Awarded PhD 2022

Completed Co-Supervision of PhD Students:

Helen Benson (UTS) (Pharmacists integrated in GP settings)- Awarded PhD 2019

Zhaleh Madhaji (University of Notre Dame, Western Australia): (Simulation and Practice) Expected 2026

Supervision of Research Elective Students:

Jeannette Le (UTS) (Reflective Practice in Clinical Environments)- completed research elective with 2 conference presentations at an Australasian conference and a publication in a high impact peer reviewed Q1 journal

Anna Groen (UTS) (GP pharmacists ) - completed research elective with publications and conference oral presentation at an Australasian conference and a published paper in peer-reviewed Q1 journal

Stephen Zhang (UTS) (Reflective Practice - Interdisciplinary)- completed research elective

Ream Sabbah (UTS) (Interprofessional Education and Reflective Practices) - completed research elective

Any HDR (PhD and/or Masters by research) student who is interested in research with Cherie as an Supervisor, should complete this form https://forms.uts.edu.au/web/index.cfm