Rate My Professor Niki Edwards

Professor Niki Edwards serves as Professor (Social Work and Human Services) in the School of Health, Psychological and Medical Sciences at the University of Southern Queensland, where she holds the position of Academic Discipline Lead for Social Work and Human Services and Program Director for the Master of Social Work (Qualifying) from 2024. She earned her BSocWk, BA, MPubAdm, and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Queensland. Her extensive career encompasses direct clinical social work in psychiatric services during deinstitutionalization, hospital social work across health specialisms, Commonwealth Rehabilitation, senior management in policy and program development, and senior advisory roles at the ministerial level. In the 1990s, she established an academic unit at the Mater Hospital addressing health needs of adults with intellectual disability, serving as Clinical Coordinator and teaching mental health clinicians, which evolved into a Queensland Centre of Excellence. Edwards has taught evidence-based medicine and clinical skills at the University of Queensland and Griffith University Schools of Medicine, spent over a decade in social work academia at Queensland University of Technology, and joined UniSQ in 2022. She is also Visiting Professor of Social Work at Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany, delivering online courses on gender in contemporary society and critical perspectives on mental health, and Visiting Fellow at QUT. Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, she has conducted consultancies supporting fellows from the Global South in disability, mental health, inclusive disaster management, gender, and social inclusion, including teaching Gender and Social Inclusion to Vietnamese Ministry of Transport staff in 2023.

Edwards' research specializations include critical social work, diversity and difference, disability, gender, inclusive disaster management, and mental health, mental illness, and psychosocial disability, with a focus on addressing social injustice through analysis of power dynamics and oppressive structures. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and maintains active involvement as a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), AASW Queensland Branch Committee, Social Policy and Advocacy Subcommittee, International Federation of Social Workers, and Queensland Inclusion Incorporated. Her key publications include 'Maternal healthcare for women with physical disabilities in rural Vietnam: A qualitative study' (Nguyen et al., 2023), 'Exploring therapeutic alliance in spinal cord injury rehabilitation: A constructivist grounded theory study' (Lovrić et al., 2025), and 'Therapeutic alliance in spinal cord injury rehabilitation' (Lovrić et al., 2026). Edwards teaches courses on disability, health, and mental health in UniSQ's Social Work and Human Services programs, emphasizing adult learning and critical engagement.