Professor Belinda Liddell

Professor Belinda Liddell is the Daphne Keats Chair in Cross-Cultural Psychology in the School of Psychological Sciences, University of Newcastle. She also holds an Adjunct Professor appointment in the School of Psychology UNSW and is Deputy Director of the Refugee Trauma and Recovery Program.

She completed her PhD at the University of Sydney in the fields of affective and cognitive neuroscience, which was awarded the H. Tasman Lovell Medallion, and holds a first class honours degree in psychology from the University of Sydney.

Belinda has worked across the fields of international development and mental health. She has worked with UNICEF Cambodia developing evidence-based policy and was previously Research Director for a longitudinal mental health project in Timor-Leste. Belinda commenced her postdoctoral research program at UNSW Sydney in 2012. Her research focuses on aligning neuroscience and human rights to understand the effects of refugee trauma, displacement, settlement and recovery. She is also conducting novel longitudinal research investigating the settlement trajectories of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia.

In all of her projects, Belinda works closely with refugee services and frontline practitioners, collaborating with organisations such as the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation for Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS), Settlement Services International (SSI) and the Australian Red Cross. She is very interested in exploring the translational opportunities associated with her research, including in regards to practice, interventions and policies to enhance the settlement and recovery of refugees. In 2014, Belinda was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate the links between clinical research with survivors of torture and human rights policy. Belinda’s other area of research investigates how culture shapes the emotional and social brain, and considers the implications of cultural differences in the neural mechanisms underpinning post-traumatic stress reactions. Belinda currently supervises PhD and Honours students in these areas of research, and is interested in hearing from potential students.

EMAIL: b.liddell@unsw.edu.au
UNSW Page: Associate Professor Belinda Liddell