Dr Cat (Catherine) Connaughton

Cat is a mid-career research fellow and health psychologist who has worked part-time in research, clinical practice, teaching, and in consultancy roles for private and public organisations since graduation in 2012. She has worked clinically for years with children and young people, such as community settings as a psychologist for the Child and Youth Mental Health Service, in schools providing assessments and therapeutic intervention to children and young people, as well as with children, young people, and families in private practice.

Relative to opportunity in research, Cat has had success in competitive applications for external funding. She has been both CI’s and AI’s on grants that translated health-related research findings to clinical outcomes for patients, two of which were based on a pilot wellbeing program that she developed, facilitated and evaluated. Three other grants were in relation to current work on implementing a follow-up protocol for infants at high-risk of neurodevelopmental delays and their families. External competitive grant funding awarded to Cat is over $180,000. Cat has also been a recipient of several awards, including the Amgen OA-ANZBMS Clinical Grants Program, and the Best Early Career Oral Presentation at the ASBHM and APS College of Health Psychologists Conference in 2017. Cat has also co-authored journal articles and book chapters, and in the past has had a peer reviewer role for several prestigious psychological journals. Cat has supervised honours and PhD students to completion through The Cairnmillar Institute, Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. She currently holds appointments at The University of Melbourne, The Cairnmillar Institute, and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.