Professor Nerina Jimmieson

Biography

Nerina Jimmieson’s research interests include (1) job design implications for employee health and well-being, (2) organizational change management and readiness for change, and (3) leadership and leader well-being. She has expertise in multiple methodologies, including lab-based task simulations, organizational questionnaires and risk assessments, and interviews.

She has 120+ publications as journal articles and book chapters. In addition to academic dissemination of her research, findings and recommendations are reported directly to her industry collaborators in the form of technical reports and other deliverables (e.g., assessment tools, training materials, how-to guides, tip sheets, and case studies).

In 2012-2015, she held an Australia Research Council Future Fellowship (2012-2015) for a project titled: ‘Supervisor strategies for managing employee stress and strain: A national approach to psychosocial risk management’.

She has secured a career total of AUD$5.6 million in research income, including 5 ARC Discovery Projects, 6 ARC Linkage Projects, and 1 NHMRC Partnership Project on hand hygiene in hospital nurses ($900,000 for 2010-2012). She has secured significant institutional ($500,000) and commercial ($500,000) funding for a range of projects.

Commencing in 2024, she is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Human-Robot Teaming for Sustainable and Resilient Construction, led by UTS ($11 million). Her focuses on the psychosocial benefits and risks associated with the deployment of human-robot teaming in construction workplaces (Research Node 12).

She served on the ARC College of Experts 2018-2020. She served 10 years as an Associate Editor for Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (2015-2024). She is an Associate Editor for Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (since 2021) and serving on the Editorial Board for Journal of Business and Psychology (since 2016). She was a past Editorial Board Member for Journal of Change Management (2009-2020).

She is in high demand as a thesis supervisor, having supervised 13 PhD students to completion, with 2 more in progress; 3 of her PhD students have won external thesis awards in recognition of research excellence; she has supervised more than 50 Master & Honours students to completion.

She has worked closely with the state (QLD; NSW; VIC) and federal (Comcare) Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) Regulators in the conduct of their WHS surveillance activities and psychosocial education initiatives for employers. She was the lead researcher on the People at Work Project, which assisted employers to install a 5-step psychosocial risk management process that included the survey assessment of psychosocial hazards and worker health outcomes. 127 organizations and 21,000 employees participated in the first phase of the People at Work Project, leading to the creation of a national normative database for states, sectors, industries, and occupations.