Urska Arnautovska

Dr Arnautovska is a psychologist with 20 years' experience spanning clinical practice and research in mental health, with a focus on health behaviour change and neuroscience. Her research translates evidence into real-world care, closing the gap between what mental health treatments can achieve and what is sustainable in individuals' everyday lives and in health services more broadly.

Her work addresses a critical structural divide: clinicians who lack the time or resourcing to address lifestyle factors, health services organised around separate physical and mental health pathways, and people with complex mental illness or those with cognitive challenges who are rarely equipped with the tools to change health behaviours on their own. Dr Arnautovska's research is focused on embedding physical health care into routine mental health treatment, so that monitoring and supporting a person's physical health becomes as standard as supporting their mental state.

She led the development of SMART, a world-first SMS-based lifestyle intervention targeting metabolic health tailored to people living with severe mental illness, delivered without reliance on smartphones or app-based platforms. SMART was developed through a comprehensive co-design process with multidisciplinary experts, clinicians, and people with lived experience, and is now being implemented within routine care at four mental health services in metropolitan Brisbane.

Consumer partnership is central to Dr Arnautovska's approach to research; she facilitates the involvement of people with lived experience across all phases of the research cycle, from priority-setting and study design through to evaluation and implementation, while actively supporting the research capacity of lived experience partners.

Dr Arnautovska has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and is a named investigator on projects attracting more than $14.5M in funding since 2021, including a $5M NHMRC Synergy Grant. Her contributions have been recognised through the Mental Health Australia General Clinical Trials Network (MAGNET) Emerging Leader Mid-Career Researcher award (2024), the UQ Rising Star Commendation (2024), and earlier BA and PhD Thesis awards (2017 and 2006).

Central to her research philosophy is the view that motivation and a person's agency are central elements of treatment outcomes and determine whether novel, health behaviour-focused interventions succeed and whether their impact is sustainable.

Dr Arnautovska grew up in Slovenia, where social justice and equality were formative family values that continue to inform her approach to health equity in her research today.