Associate Professor Katherine Baldock

Associate Professor Katherine Baldock (she/her) is a leader in higher education and academic practice.  In her leadership roles, Katherine leads strategic approaches to academic development, including reimagining structural and cultural facilitators, to support the transformative education of graduates who are socially just, anti-racist, culturally responsive and who will contribute to creating a better world.  Her current role as Associate Director: Teaching Innovation Unit provides Katherine the ideal platform to drive change in higher education structures and practices to that end.  In this role she leads a large team of Lecturers in Academic Development and Learning Designers in the Academic Development portfolio, including approaches to curriculum design and development, academic professional learning, and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).

Katherine has a background in public health practice, research and teaching, and has led numerous initiatives in curriculum renewal at institutional and national levels. She led the development of two new public health programs at UniSA, including weaving the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Curriculum Framework across the entire degree program.  In recent years, Katherine has moved into strategic teaching and learning leadership roles within higher education. She has led numerous local and strategic initiatives to support the development of academics who are culturally responsive in their teaching practice and equipped to embed Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing within curricula and pedagogy.  She co-created the Aboriginal curriculum and pedagogy mapping & decolonisation process (ACP) for UniSA with Dr Aidan Cornelius-Bell and Michael Watkins. Katherine now leads a team of Aboriginal and non-Indigenous academics in an institution-wide strategic relational approach to decolonising higher education and in developing systems and practices for the sustainable and transformative weaving of Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing within curricula and pedagogy across disciplines.

Alongside academic leadership, Katherine is an active researcher in educational initiatives as well as public health projects.  She is an Associate Investigator on the NHMRC funded special initiative on human health and environmental change, Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL).  Katherine collaborates nationally in research on: 1) teaching advocacy in public health curricula across Australia; 2) evaluating racial segregation in learning objectives within First Nations health courses; 3) development of academic capacity and responsiveness to decolonise curricula; 4) co-creation of a suite of online modules in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research methods and approaches.  She is also principal/co-supervisor for several PhD and Masters by Research candidates, and has supervised 9 Higher Degree Research students to completion.

Katherine remains actively engaged in the public health agenda nationally.  She is currently a Board Member on the Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australasia.  In this role, Katherine leads the Education Quality and Standards working group, and within this, is leading the renewal of the public health graduate competencies through a co-design process.  Katherine is also currently the Vice President of the South Australian Branch of the Public Health Association of Australia, providing senior advice and leadership in advocacy initiatives.

Public Health Association of Australia

Australasian Epidemiological Association

International Epidemiological Association

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy University of South Australia

• Bachelor of Health Sciences The University of Adelaide

• Graduate Diploma in Public Health The University of Adelaide