Rate My Professor Vanessa Clark

Dr Vanessa Clark serves as a Lecturer in the School of Nursing and Midwifery and a post-doctoral researcher in translational asthma research at the Centre for Research Excellence in Severe Asthma, University of Newcastle, Australia. Awarded a PhD from the University of Newcastle in 2015, following a Bachelor of Psychology (Honours I) from the same university, Clark brings a background in psychology to her work on chronic illness, health behaviours, and mental health. Her research expertise includes quantitative and qualitative methods, multi-centre randomised controlled trials, and investigations into chronic diseases such as cancer, severe asthma, and severe mental disorders. Key areas of focus encompass respiratory diseases, health interventions, mental health, and specifically the management of severe asthma through multidimensional assessment, targeted therapy, treatable traits in severe asthma and COPD, breathlessness, physical activity, anxiety, depression, dysfunctional breathing, and patient experiences with add-on pharmacotherapies and comorbidities including vocal cord dysfunction.

Clark has made significant contributions through numerous publications and funded projects. Prominent works include "Treatable traits: a new paradigm for 21st century management of chronic airway diseases: Treatable Traits Down Under International Workshop report" (European Respiratory Journal, 2019; 331 citations), "Targeting treatable traits in severe asthma: a randomised controlled trial" (European Respiratory Journal, 2020; 229 citations), "Multidimensional assessment of severe asthma: a systematic review and meta-analysis" (Respirology, 2017; 137 citations), "Associations of symptoms of anxiety and depression with health-status, asthma control, dyspnoea, dysfunctional breathing and obesity in people with severe asthma" (Respiratory Research, 2022; 90 citations), and "Core Function in Adults With Severe Asthma and Its Relationship With Breathing Symptoms" (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Practice, 2024). With 44 journal outputs and 31 conference presentations, her scholarship has garnered substantial citations. She has secured awards such as the Translational Research Fellowship (Centre for Research Excellence in Severe Asthma, 2016–2019; $198,000) and Research Advantage Early Career Researcher Scholarship (2016–2019; $78,864), contributing to grants exceeding $1.9 million, including a major digital intervention grant ($1,554,663; 2024). Clark has also supervised two PhD theses to completion.