Dr Danielle Davidson

Biography

Dr Danielle Davidson is a lecturer in the School of Public Health and Social Work, Faculty of Health at Queensland University of Technology. Dr Davidson is a social scientist and multidisciplinary researcher, with first class Honours in Criminology and Criminal Justice (Griffith University), Graduate Diploma in Psychology (QUT), and PhD in Social Work (University of Queensland). She has extensive research experience using qualitative, quantiative and evaluation methods. Her clinical experience as a telephone counsellor acted as inspiration for her PhD thesis and has led to her becoming one of Australia's top researchers on telephone counsellor wellbeing. In addition, she had developed one of the few conceptualisations of telephone counselling as a form of spatial practice several leading counselling services. Her current research interests centre on the role played by physical environments in shaping health and wellbeing, practitioner professional discretion and agency, and social service practitioner wellbeing. Recent research projects have focused on examining young people’s experiences of complex social phenomenon, such as homelessness and domestic violence, and university students' experiences of homelessness and housing insecurity. Other studies have examined how newly qualified social workers navigate complexity in their role and learn how to become social work professionals in increasingly managerial work contexts; and explored the way more experienced social service practitioners work in dynamic and responsive ways to help mitigate the challenges of neoliberalism and managerialism.

Her social science experience has accumulated over 15 years of direct research experience across a wide range of universities and research centres including Institute of Social Science Research (ISSR) and Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) (2006-2008), Bristol City Council (UK) (2001-2002) School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University (1998-2000).