Rate My Professor Hazel Dalton

Dr Hazel Dalton serves as Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle, with ongoing affiliation to the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health in Orange. She earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from the University of New South Wales in 2004 and a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Biochemistry from the same university in 1996. Dalton's career trajectory includes early roles as a Research Scientist at the Centre for Cancer Biology, SA Pathology (2004-2012), and the University of Adelaide (2001-2004). Transitioning to rural health, she held research administration positions at the University of Sydney's School of Rural Health (2012-2014) before joining the University of Newcastle in 2014. There, she advanced from Project Officer on the Rural Adversity Mental Health Program to Research Leader and Senior Research Fellow at CRRMH in 2016, overseeing research in mental health promotion, integrated care innovations, rural suicide prevention, and community wellbeing initiatives.

In addition to her honorary role at Newcastle, Dr Dalton is Senior Research Fellow at Charles Sturt University's Rural Health Research Institute, where she leads efforts in knowledge translation, co-design, and evaluation of rural health interventions. Her research focuses on rural and remote mental health services, health equity, and policy influence, evidenced by pivotal contributions such as the Orange Declaration on rural and remote mental health (2019, Australian Journal of Rural Health) and the International declaration on rural mental health research (2024). Select publications include "Co-creating community wellbeing initiatives: what is the evidence and how do they work?" (2024), "Lessons from the development and delivery of a rural suicide prevention program" (2021), and "Teen Clinic - An integrated primary healthcare model" (2023). Awards recognizing her impact encompass the Waratah Research Network Research Impact Showcase (2022) and Emerging Research Abstract Award (2024). Dalton has shaped policy through submissions to parliamentary inquiries and contributed to funded projects like the Central Coast Integrated Care Program and MRFF grants on disaster resilience and Aboriginal health.