• Title
  Item 1: Professor Rebecca Ivers interview by Bianca Nogrady
• Level of description
  item
• Date
  
  11 February 2025
• Type of material
  Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Oral Histories
• Reference code
  9684323
• Physical Description
  1 audio file (2 hr., 15 min.) - digital, WAV, stereo (48 kHz, 24 bit)
  
• Scope and Content
  In this interview Professor Ivers speaks about her family history, growing up in southern Sydney, her schooling and the emphasis during her education on having an enquiring mind and in her family on work and financial independence. Rebecca talks of deciding to study optometry where participation with SIGCH (student interest group in community health) at university sparked an interest in community and public health. She describes a decision to move to the Northern Territory where she worked in Katharine as a 21-year-old graduate as a solo optometrist and learned how to work in Aboriginal primary healthcare in remote communities.
  
  After completing a Masters in Public Health, Ivers undertook a PhD which looked at the relationship between poor vision, falls and fractures in the elderly Blue Mountains community, her entrée into injury management. Ivers speaks of opportunities afforded her and the experience of having small children during her PhD. Following her PhD Ivers took up a post-doctoral position at George Institute for Global Health with Robyn Norton (where she worked from 2001 until 2018), focussed on reducing non-communicable diseases and injuries. Ivers played a key role in getting the injury program off the ground, looking at prevention and treatment, with a growing interest and expertise in studying road injury in young people, nationally and globally, including the use of motorcycle helmets and child car seats.
  
  Professor Ivers describes working with Aboriginal health researcher Kathleen Clapham on Aboriginal youth driving research in the northern rivers area of NSW, looking at road safety and driver licensing support programs. Her leading work in helping research and fund Aboriginal led programs in the area has led to the state government funding the Disadvantaged Learner Access Program, which she describes as the most important piece of work she will ever do. Ivers discusses moving to UNSW to head up the School of Population Health and some of the challenges facing researchers of the present and future, especially declining research funding in Australia.
• Copying Conditions
  In copyright:
  Copyright holder:: State Library of New South Wales
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• General note
  
  Recorded at Forbes Street Studios, Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, on 11 February 2025
  Professor Ivers would like a correction to be noted: At 00:21:07 in the interview, she mentions that her sister Roberta works for publisher Pan MacMillan. In fact, she works for Harper Collins.
• Creator/Author/Artist
  Ivers, Rebecca
  
• Subject
  Ivers, Rebecca--Interviews.
  Public health--Australia.
  Accidents--Prevention.
  Health services - Health programs
  Women scientists--Australia--Interviews.
  Women in science--Australia--Interviews.
  Scientists--Australia--Interviews.
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE21250830

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