Rate My Professor Rachel Heath

Honorary Associate Professor Rachel Heath is affiliated with the School of Psychological Sciences in the College of Engineering, Science and Environment at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She earned her PhD in Psychology from McMaster University, Canada, in 1976. Her career began with a Lecturer position in the School of Psychology at the University of Newcastle around 1975, followed by full Professor positions at two United Kingdom universities. She rejoined the University of Newcastle in 2015 as Conjoint Associate Professor and currently holds an Honorary Associate Professorship in Psychology. Heath has also been recognized with an Honorary Professorship at the University of Newcastle.

Professor Heath specializes in mathematical modelling and assessment of human wellness using wearable devices and mobile apps in final development stages, targeting chronic physical and mental illnesses, long Covid, and mood disorders for relapse prediction. Her research employs multifractal methods for decision-making and psychomotor tasks, with applications in human factors such as aviation and flight simulation, nonlinear dynamics in psychology, chaos detection in human behavior, and transgender health. She is the author or co-author of two books on transgender health and one on nonlinear dynamics applications in psychology, 63 book chapters and refereed articles, 30 minor publications, and has delivered 164 conference presentations and invited talks. Key publications include "Detecting early signs of SARS-CoV-2 infection using heart rate data" (2022), "A Stochastic Multiplicative Cascade Model for Monitoring Relapse in Mood Disorder Using Wearable Data" (2022), "Multifractal dynamics of activity data in Bipolar Disorder: Towards automated early warning of manic relapse" (2016), "Modeling Unipolar Depression as a Chaotic Process" (2003), and "Critically appraising the cass report: methodological flaws and unsupported claims" (2025). Her achievements include several Australian Research Council Large Grants, such as an inaugural cognitive science grant, a Worksafe Australia grant for occupational health research, and the University of Newcastle Long Service Medallion. Her work has featured in UK media, including BBC Radio 4 Science Show.