Dr Olivia Whalen

Lecturer, University of Newcastle

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Healthy Minds

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With a neurodivergent colleague, we established Newcastle’s very first Neuroadvisory consumer group to guide inclusive research and teaching

In less than 5 years post-PhD, Dr Whlen has attracted more than $300,000 in competitive funding

Supervises four brilliant PhD students, and is passionate about supporting emerging neurodivergent scholars

Dr Olivia Whalen (BPsychHons, PhD) is a Lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Newcastle.

Dr Whalen is an international award-winning researcher with a research focus on child development and primarily investigates the impact of maternal asthma and other exposures on the developmental outcomes of children.

As an ECR (PhD awarded March 2020), Dr Whalen’s research experience spans longitudinal and cohort studies, randomised controlled trials and implementation trials. They have an emerging research profile in developmental and applied psychology and maintain a series of local and national collaborations across several disciplines.

During their PhD, Dr Whalen was the Project Manager for the Breathing for Life – Infant Development study, a multi-disciplinary project that assessed maternal mental health of women with asthma and the developmental outcomes of their infants in the first year of life. Dr Whalen is currently following up this cohort through to preschool age on a range of developmental measures, including autism assessments.

Olivia is looking to begin new research in autism and pain and the parenting experience of autistic parents. Please reach out if you wish to collaborate on these projects.

Olivia also does service work to advocate and make change for disabled academics and students.

HMRI would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live, the Awabakal and Worimi peoples, and pay our respects to Elders past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage and beliefs and their continued connection to their land.