Kathleen Clapham

Kathleen Frances Clapham is an Indigenous Australian anthropologist and health researcher, who was the recipient of an Order of Australia, for services to "indigenous community health and tertiary education". She is the founding director of both the Ngarruwan Ngadjul: First People's Health and Wellbeing Research Centre as well as Professor of Indigenous Health at the University of Wollongong.

Education and career
Clapham's father was the source of her drive and passion for education, and inspired her to work in academia. She is a descendant of the Murrawarri people, who are based in the north-west of New South Wales, Australia.

She has worked in improving health and learning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, combined with a focus on improving the health and access to health care, across Australia. Her research has also focussed on the delivery and accessibility of health care in Indigenous communities and community health care.

Clapham received a Bachelor of Arts (hons) from the University of Sydney, in 1981, and a PhD, also from the University of Sydney, in 1990. She has been Professor (Indigenous Health) at the University of Wollongong since 2007, and is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health, since 2010, in the Injury Division.

Clapham has spent more than 25 years in leadership in research in Indigenous health research. She has focussed on social factors and determinants which contribute towards health, and she has been a long-term advocate of Indigenous world views, such as self-determinatin, automony, and social justice.

Professor Clapham has been a chief investigator on numerous funded studies, with 12 NHMRC and ARC funded studies, with a total of more than $17.5 million in grant funding. She is the primary investigator of an ARC research project, which has the goal of creating a 'place based' model for solutions to complex health and social issues, that are community led.

She focuses on health services improvements and community-led solutions to complex health and social issues. She has been instrumental in developing strong partnerships with Aboriginal community organizations, particularly in southeastern New South Wales. She has worked on projects to prevent injury of Aboriginal children, based on community-led solutions.

She has delivered many place-based solutions, which is a strength of local communities."“These local communities have got good linkages and good communication between each other, and so are able to operate in a different way than government and non-Aboriginal organisations,”"

Publications
Clapham has over 1300 citations and an H-index of 20, according to Google Scholar,



Awards & recognition

 * 2024 - Order of Australia - King's Birthday honours.
 * 2022 - Australia Day Awards.
 * 2021 - First Nations Health, Wellbeing and Health Services Research Award.