Dr Isabella Zhao

Research Fellow

PhD (University of Queensland), Bachelor of Nursing 1st Class Honours (University of Queensland)

Isabella is a registered nurse with over 10 years of clinical experience in General Practice. Isabella was awarded with Bachelor of Nursing 1st Class Honours at The University of Queensland in 2007 and then received the Australian Postgraduate Award and have completed her PhD study in Nursing/Epidemiology. She also received the second prize for young investigator’s award for her PhD study at an international conference.   Since her Honors’ study, Isabella has worked on various projects including NHMRC funded RCTs of lung cancer patients. Given her research and clinical experiences, Isabella developed interest in primary health service delivery especially for cancer patients. Isabella is interested in research focusing on care coordination at primary care level to improve patients’ functional status and quality of life. As a result, she has been actively involved in service improvement projects conducted by Medicare Local, Australia. Isabella has experienced over 6 years of career disruption due to family responsibilities. She has 19 publications to date. In terms of funding, she received one competitive early career researcher grant from IHBI, QUT ($10,000.00) and a competitive external grant from PC4/Cancer Nurse Society Australia joint funding ($10,000.00). Isabella provided consultation to research students’ projects in study design, statistical advice, and result interpretation. She also co-mentored vacation research experience students from 2009 to 2012. Recently in 2020, Isabella has been awarded with Rosemary Bryant Foundation seeding grant of $10,000.00; and a grant from Australian Practice Nurse Association ($20,000) to set up a practice nurse led palliative care clinic at the general practice.

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