A/Prof. Amy McLennan, SFHEA

Hello! I’m a social researcher and educator committed to improving human health. I gravitate to topics that are resistant to being addressed using the scientific approach alone – perhaps because they sit between specialisations, or because they’re new, or old, or unquantifiable, or taboo, or complex and dynamic...

My undergraduate training was in the medical sciences and French, and I completed doctoral and postdoctoral training in medical anthropology at the University of Oxford, in the world's leading anthropology department. 

My work on topics including chronic disease, gender, food and technology has reached audiences via a wide range of academic journals, government policies, and the global media, including The Guardian, ABC and BBC Radio. 

I'm currently an Associate Professor in the ANU College of Systems and Society, where I'm establishing a chronic health co-lab focused on forging new, cross-disciplinary futures for chronic disease and illness.

🔎 As an experienced ethnographic researcher with a background in biomedical research, I work on topics including non-communicable disease, food, chronic illness, health technology. 

📚 As a policy analyst in the federal Australian government, I worked on collaborative projects that span multiple agencies, such as women's safety, innovation, capacity building, technology procurement.

👩🏽‍🎓 As an educator and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), I'm most at home teaching students how to make sense of complex topics and wrangle multiple perspectives with rigour, creativity, and a bit of a sense of humour. I have experience delivering professional education programs in universities, industry and government settings. 

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 As a facilitator, I work best with cross-disciplinary, cross-sectoral or cross-generational groups who seek ways to collaborate to make something new. I've designed and facilitated high-profile cross-disciplinary workshops in Paris, Bremen, Canberra, Sydney, New York, London and Oxford.

🧩 As a colleague, I am open, honest and committed to a team. I have a deep sense of community, having grown up in the Aussie countryside, and I like to infuse complexity, curiosity and fun into my work.

• DPhil Anthropology (University of Oxford)
• MPhil Medical Anthropology (University of Oxford)
• BSc (Honours Anatomical Sciences) (University of Adelaide)
• BMedSc (Nutrition, Neuroscience, Physiology) (Flinders University)
• DipLang (Advanced French) (Flinders University)

Research interests

• Medical anthropology
• Chronic illness
• Health and human wellbeing
• Social and culture change
• Food, nutrition and obesity 
• Global health governance
• Diabetes
• Chronic pain
• Human anatomy
• Global food systems
• Social and cultural anthropology

National policy work

• Gender violence
• Cybercrime and cyber security
• Innovation
• Migration
• Cities
• Health technology implementation
• Sustainable development goals (SDGs)

Places of research and/or professional experience

• Pacific islands (especially Nauru)
• UK
• France  
• Germany
• EU
• Australia