Zoe Rutherford

Dr Zoe Rutherford is an experienced and successful leader, with an established teaching, research and consultancy track record spanning >17 years. Her professional and academic expertise in translational research stems from her drive for developing new and effective ways of improving people’s health, particularly those who are deemed ‘hard to reach’ and therefore miss out on services. Zoe achieves this through building deep and trusted relationships with stakeholders at all levels to 1) develop improved methodologies for how evidence-based interventions can be implemented in the real-world in a feasible, acceptable, inclusive, and efficacious way; and 2) develop research projects that are co-designed, using frameworks and methods that are valid, reliable, acceptable and feasible in the field.

As the lead of the Mental Health Evaluation Research Stream at the Qld Centre for Mental Health Research, Qld’s premier mental health research organisation, Dr Rutherford supervises a team of 10 evaluation specialists, using mixed methodologies to conduct evaluation research that is informing the way that community and clinically based mental health services support Queenslanders with treating, managing and recovering from mental ill-health. Having secured >$4M in funding to lead several successful statewide, mixed methods evaluations of Queensland community health services, Zoe has fast become Qld Health’s go to person for mental health implementation and evaluation research and expert advice. This has enabled her to secure $1.1M/yr in long-term funding from Qld Health’s Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs Branch to sustain the Mental Health Evaluation Research Stream, with a program of > 7 statewide mental health service evaluations slated for completion over the next 3yrs.