Board

Dr Elizabeth Lavender

Liz undertook her initial nursing education at the Addington Hospital and the University of Kwa/Zulu Natal in Durban, South Africa.

After graduation she worked as a registered nurse in South Africa, London and Queensland. She joined La Trobe University when the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences became part of the University in 1988 and worked in nurse education at the Melbourne, Albury/Wodonga and Bendigo Campuses before taking the senior roles of Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and latterly Director of the Shepparton Campuses.

Her professional interests are in international and rural and regional education particularly providing educational opportunities for students who otherwise wouldn’t have access to higher education.

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Dr Ingrid Brooks

Since training at the Alfred Hospital, Ingrid has had a long career in teaching and curriculum development in nursing and many years of experience working on boards and committees at state and national levels.

She is currently board member and treasurer for the Psi Zeta at-Large Chapter of Sigma nursing society. From 2015–2021 she was Head of Campus for Nursing and Midwifery at Monash University providing leadership in governance, strategic planning and management of the School’s operations at Clayton.

She also ran her own education and management consulting business for seven years. As a Fellow of the Australian College of Nursing, since 2017 Ingrid has been privileged to review applications for the Emerging Nurse Leader program.

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Mr David Balcombe

David is a Chartered Accountant who had a long career at a top 4 accounting firm. He undertook a range of roles including audit, corporate finance, risk management and quality systems. Currently he is a financial counsellor specialising in problem gambling financial issues. He is energised by working for fairness and justice for vulnerable people using the skills learned during his previous career. He is also a member of the Australia Health Practitioners Regulation Agency finance, audit and risk committee and the board of Financial Counselling Victoria Inc.

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Adjunct Associate Professor Judith Reeves

Judy Reeves is the Director of Nursing Education and Professional Development at Alfred Health and has held this Nursing Executive position at Alfred Health since October 2019.

She was previously the Director of Nursing at Sandringham Hospital and the Clinical Service Director for Paediatrics, Alfred Health for 10 years. During this time, she spent a year as the acting Director of the Alfred Foundation. Her longstanding interests include leadership, staff development, team dynamics in health settings, leading change in clinical practice and developing philanthropic scholarships to advance nursing practice.

Judy is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Adjunct Associate Professor at Deakin, Monash and La Trobe universities.

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Ms Barbara Green

Barbara has spent the majority of her professional life working in higher education in Victoria, she holds a Graduate Diploma in Administrative Management and a Graduate Diploma in Computing. She recently retired following 10 years as an administrator in a university library and 32 years in nursing education (Deakin University, La Trobe University and Victoria University).

Her focus during her latter time in nursing was international students, international experiences for domestic students, international relationships, partnerships and staff and student cultural competency. Barbara worked closely with the transfer of nursing education into the higher education sector, has worked internationally, Thailand and London, and is the Chair of the Melbourne Chapter of the Australia Bhutan Friendship Association.

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Dr Susan Lee

Dr Lee is a registered nurse with extensive experience as a nurse academic, specialising in education, research and palliative care. Her last appointment before retiring was as Director of Research Degrees at Monash University Nursing and Midwifery where she was responsible for staff supervision and student research skill development, student-supervisor relationships and scholarship ranking. She has served on various palliative care boards related to clinical service delivery, peak organisations and nursing leadership. Susan is a member of the Scholarship Committee.

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Emeritus Professor Mari Bott

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Mari Botti has had an academic career in nursing spanning over 40 years. She contributed extensively to the strategic direction of nursing research at Deakin University, provided supervision and mentorship for research and post-doctoral students and academic staff, and was Chair and Deputy Chair of the research and ethics committees of Deakin University, Alfred Health and Epworth HealthCare for over a decade.

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Sue Burgess

Sue is an accomplished executive leader with over 25 years of experience across cultural institutions, financial services, and international volunteer organisations.

Her executive career includes a decade at the Shrine of Remembrance, where she led exhibitions, education, digital programs, volunteer engagement, and major partnerships. She has overseen large-scale projects, secured substantial philanthropic and grant funding, and championed inclusive programming, community outreach, and organisational visibility.

Her strengths lie in people leadership, governance participation, ethical oversight, project delivery, and stakeholder relations across diverse cultural contexts.

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Emeritus Professor Judith Parker

I undertook my basic nursing training at the Melbourne School of Nursing, which prefigured the shift to College/University based nursing education in a number of important ways. In this visionary and, sadly, short lived experiment in nursing education, we “belonged” to the School rather than to a specific training hospital and undertook our clinical placements at a number of affiliated hospitals. While we were paid employees rather than supernumerary students, our Dean and nursing educators wanted to ensure that through our exposure to the differing cultures, rituals and conventional nursing practices of the participating hospitals, we truly understood the importance of drawing upon principles rather than habitual routines in our nursing care.

I worked as an RN at Royal Melbourne Hospital for a few years, and later, with four small children, I worked part-time in a number of clinical settings. I wanted to gain a more coherent understanding of the vulnerability and suffering I had encountered in nursing and I enrolled part-time in an Arts degree at Monash in 1969. I was continuously enrolled at Monash for over ten years, undertaking an honours degree and a PhD which was on the topic of the structural, cultural and individual impact of a terminal cancer diagnosis upon patients.

By the time I was appointed as a lecturer at Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences (LIHS) in 1979, I was one of only five PhD prepared nurses in the country and soon after this, hospital-based nursing education was transferred to Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs). The CAE’s focused particularly on teaching and when LIHS amalgamated with La Trobe University, I was in a position to start developing a research agenda for nursing at the university. I applied for a travelling grant from the Nurses Memorial Centre and was able to examine research developments in nursing internationally. I spent 17 years at Lincoln/LaTrobe before I was invited to take up the position of Foundation Head and Chair of the School of Nursing at the University of Melbourne where we focused on interdisciplinary clinical research and education for advanced specialty nursing practice.

I was honoured over my career to be placed on the inaugural Victorian Honour Roll of Women, to receive an Order of Australia (AM) and, upon leaving The University of Melbourne, to receive the title of Emeritus Professor. I believe my greatest contributions have been in my focus of advanced practice, in my writings about nursing and in my mentorship of nurses, many of whom now hold leadership posts in Australia and internationally.

I entered nursing at a time when there were fewer opportunities for women and was swept along on the wave of innovations in higher education which opened up new worlds for women generally and for nurses specifically. Now is another time of huge change where nurses can play key policy, practice, research and teaching roles in this era of new and emerging communicable diseases.

I am excited to have been appointed Patron of the ANMC and look forward to supporting another generation of nurses in their clinical and scholarly pursuits.

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Applications Closed

ANMC scholarship applications are currently closed.
Applications open annually from 1 July to 31 August for both coursework and research postgraduate study pathways.
Please check back during the application period for access to the scholarship application forms.

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