Associate Professor
Margaret MacAndrew

Biography

Dr MacAndrew is an RN with experience across many clinical settings, including emergency nursing, care of children with special needs, dental surgery and most recently aged and dementia care. With a passion for improving quality of life and quality of care for older people and people with dementia, particularly in residential aged care, Margaret made a career change in 2010 and took a position as a research assistant and later a project manager with the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, and a sessional academic at QUT.  After completing her PhD that described the charaterisitcs of dementia-related boundary transgression, the characterisitc of wandering  behaviour that takes the person  into out of bounds or hazardous areas, she accepted the position of Academic in the School of Nursing, QUT. In this role she coordinated and re-developed the first year undergraduate clinical theory unit (NSB132) to focus on care of the older person and people with dementia. She also co-lead the development of the Masters of Gerontology course. In 2023, she was appointed as the Director of Dementia Training Australia (Qld & NT).

As a mid-career researcher she leads a program of research focusing on improving the safety of older people and people with dementia through non-pharmacological interventions, better assessment and person centred care planning. She has published 25 peer reviewed journal articles and has received over $450,000 funding as principal investigator. She also served as a member of the  NNIDR/DCRC  Dementia Consumer Involvement Advisory Panel and contributed to the development of training resources for dementia Advocates and Researchers.