The Health Collaborative Research Network (Health CRN) has announced prestigious PhD scholarships for Hayley Etherton, based at CQUniversity's Appleton Institute in Adelaide, and Belinda Goodwin, enrolled at Bundaberg Campus...

Professor Sonĵ Hall, Director of the Health CRN congratulated both Hayley and Belinda.

"We received a total of 15 applications, and the panel assessed both Belinda's and Hayley's applications as worthy recipients.  This is an exciting initiative comprising high excellence awards that will advance and grow the careers of both these women," Professor Hall says.

Bundaberg's Belinda Goodwin - LINK for larger image 
Adelaide's Hayley Etherton - LINK for larger image 

Ms Goodwin completed a Bachelor of Psychology at CQUniversity last year and decided she would like to continue researching human behaviour, rather than practicing as a psychologist.

"Human behaviour is where my passion lies. I am very pleased to have started my PhD this year under the guidance of supervisors from CQUniversity, Griffith University and the University of Queensland," she said.

"The aim of my research is to identify physiological indicators of reward and punishment processing using resting electroencephalogram (EEG), event-related potential (ERP) and survey measures."

Ms Goodwin will be examining brain responses during gambling tasks and investigating individual differences in reward sensitivity, sensation seeking, and impulsivity.

"Findings will contribute to our understanding of the neurophysiology that underlies the cognitions, behaviours and personalities of those individuals who are prone to gambling and other addiction-related health problems," she said.

"This project provides a wonderful opportunity for three Queensland universities to work together, promoting collaboration through the sharing of resources and knowledge. I'm excited to be a part of it."

Meanwhile, Ms Etherton's PhD will be on infant sleep and settling, exploring issues such as the availability, delivery and uptake of infant sleep and settling interventions via surveys, focus groups and interviews with parents and health professionals.

"At present, the majority of infant sleep intervention research and practice utilises behaviour-based extinction methods (including cry it out, camping out, controlled crying/soothing, etc) to reduce and eliminate difficulties falling asleep and disruptive night waking," she said.

"However, pilot data has shown that of the 30-40% of parents who experience problems with their infant's sleep, about 70% either did not use or started but stopped using an extinction-based intervention method.

"It is currently unknown how representative this data is of the Australian population and what these parents then do to resolve or manage their infant's sleep problems.

"Because sleep problems can have a wide range of negative effects (e.g. poorer cognition, physical and emotional wellbeing, and family discord) it is important to understand the barriers preventing intervention uptake and compliance and whether these families are resolving the issue by another means. This would then allow us to better direct treatment based on this understanding of family needs.

"I hope to be able to continue this work after completing my PhD as there is still so much to learn about families and how we can best help them."