Rate My Professor Elizabeth Austin

Dr Elizabeth Austin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science (CHRIS) at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI), Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences, Macquarie University. She completed her PhD in Psychology at Macquarie University in 2018, focusing on spatial communication and gesture. Her doctoral research investigated the role of gesture in communicating spatial route directions, examining its use and effects on task performance and recall across the lifespan, from preschool children to adults. This built on her honours project and drew from experimental paradigms in memory, cognition, second language acquisition, and Piagetian conservation reasoning. Austin earned her BA (Hons) in Psychology from Macquarie University in 2012. Her background spans cognitive sciences, communication, and learning theory. She has tutored psychology units such as PSYC100, PSY248, PSYC104, and PSYC105 at Macquarie University (2013-2017) and Australian Catholic University (2017), developing lectures on research design, t-tests, sample size, and power analysis, and marking assessments.

Austin's current research applies complexity science, social psychology, and human factors to healthcare, emphasizing communication in emergency departments (EDs), sociotechnical systems, organisational culture, and resilience strategies. She leads adaptations of human factors methods for healthcare, contributing to improved ED functioning for vulnerable cohorts like culturally and linguistically diverse adults and mental health patients. Notable publications include 'Strategies to improve care in the emergency department for culturally and linguistically diverse adults: a systematic review' (Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 2025), 'Understanding mental health care experiences in the emergency department using a human factors approach' (Ergonomics, 2025), 'Bringing clarity and transparency to the consultative process underpinning the implementation of an ethics framework for AI-based healthcare applications: a qualitative study' (AI and Ethics, 2025), 'Strategies to measure and improve emergency department resilience: a scoping review' (2020, cited 115 times), and 'Implementing ethics in healthcare AI-based applications: a scoping review' (2021, cited 111 times). In 2020 alone, she published six peer-reviewed journal articles, including two as first author, and contributed literature reviews to local health districts. Her Google Scholar profile shows over 1,219 citations. Austin supervises two PhD candidates, one MRes candidate, eight medical doctorate candidates, and undergraduates in PACE and Psychology Honours units. She has delivered conference presentations, such as on ED work-as-done observations and pre-hospital ambulance interactions (2024).