Research and Evaluation4520582

Professor Sharon Brownie

RN, RM, BEd, MEd Admin, M Hth S Mgt, M App Mgt N, GAICD, FCNA, FACHSM, Doc Bus Admin, PhD

Professor Sharon Brownie is an experienced, clinically active higher-education leader and researcher. Her work spans the health, education, economic development, and employment sectors, with international experience across New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific, Middle East, and East Africa.

She holds two doctorates: one focused on New Zealand’s partnership-based public policy model for regional economic development, and a PhD by published works titled Nursing in Health Service Leadership. Committed to equitable access to quality health and education services, Sharon has worked extensively in rural and remote settings to build capacity, support indigenous empowerment and improve services for marginalized communities. She is recognised for her collaborative, partnership-based approach in building strong, sustainable, service-orientated, social and economic conditions that enhance community wellbeing.

Sharon has joined the research team at the School of Rural Medicine to support research capacity building activities. In addition to her role at CSU, she is a Ministerial appointee to the New Zealand Nursing Council and to the Boards of Unitec and the Manukau Institute of Technology in Auckland.

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Sharon has extensive experience in curriculum design, educational accreditation, and extramural teaching. She spent ten years teaching the Teaching and Learning course in the Bachelor of Education at Massey University, where she received Awards of Merit from the Extramural Students Society for Exceptional Commitment to Extramural Teaching and for Exceptional Teaching in the Delivery of Extramural Courses.

Her curriculum work includes contextualising the Griffith University Bachelor of Nursing program for delivery in the UAE and completing a Government of Egypt commission to introduce competency-based curriculum approaches and update the national curriculum for Technical Nurses. Her current teaching focuses on developing research and publication skills among medical students in the School of Rural Medicine.

Sharon is an active researcher with more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and ISBN reports—50 of which were published in the past five years. Her research interests include:

Partnership-based and interprofessional practice in collaborative care
Nursing and health workforce capacity building
Safe practice in virtual care
Student-led clinical placement and community engagement models
Competency-based education and training

From 2021–2025 she led a student-led, interprofessional primary care initiative supported by a $1.5 million Trust Waikato grant. She also serves as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, collaborating with the Chief Nurse on research to develop clinical guidelines and curricula for safe telehealth-based virtual care.

To date, she has secured $6.2 million AUD in research, industry, and philanthropic funding to support her work with organisations and communities. She actively mentors and involves early career researchers in all research teams.

ResearchGate