EM/ProfChristine Duffield

Emeritus Professor Christine Duffield RN, BScN (Western) MHP (UNSW), PhD (UNSW). Prior to her appointment to UTS Christine worked for several years as a clinical nurse, educator and manager in a variety of acute care hospitals in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Christine's research focuses on nurse staffing and the use of nurses, nursing leadership and a range of current issues facing the nursing workforce. She led the first study in Australia which examined the relationship between nursing numbers, the mix of staff and patient and staff outcomes. Other funded research projects include defining advanced practice in a range of clinical facilities, the impact of adding nursing support workers, the costs and consequences of nursing turnover, factors impacting on nurses health and the role of nurse managers and leaders in ensuring positive patient and staff outcomes.

She has obtained over $14M in research funding and has held several ARC-linkage grants as a Chief Investigator. Christine has supervised students in a range of projects related to nursing workforce and methods of service delivery. Examples of her research interests include recruitment and retention of nurses; costs and consequences of nursing turnover; nurse to patient ratios; staffing hospitals to improve patient outcomes; workforce reform in the emergency department; the impact of patient movements on nursing workload; advanced practice for nurses.

She is one of the top 10 most-cited nursing and midwifery professors in Australia and New Zealand and was recently named in Mendeley’s top 100,000 cited researchers in the world.

She was President of the Australian College of Nursing from 2017-2023.