Dr Alice Cairns is a senior research fellow with James Cook University’s Department of Rural Health, based in rural Queensland. She is a qualified occupational therapist, clinically specialising in mental health rehabilitation. Since completing her PhD in 2017, her work has focused on building collaborative research partnerships, mentorship of clinicians and clinical teams, research translation and service evaluation, and co-design of allied health service models.

She is a member of the leadership group for the Northern Australian Research Network (NARN), an allied health cross sector and jurisdiction network aimed at developing research capacity. Alice has over 30 published peer-reviewed journal papers and more than 20 presentations at local and national conferences.