Valerie Jane Leishman

Valerie’s research interests lie within community and cross-cultural psychology: applied to improve holistic wellbeing and quality of life in context, for communities and community members who have faced displacement and resettlement. For her Honours project Valerie worked with communities in Taiwan where community members had been displaced and permanently resettled after a major typhoon event.  Post Honours in early 2020, Valerie travelled to Bangladesh to complete research fieldwork in collaboration with six local team members, with community members displaced after flooding events. Unfortunately this fieldwork ended prematurely due to Covid-19.

Valerie's current PhD project adopts a collaborative approach in working with NT based providers who provide services to former refugees who have been resettled in the NT. The project is currently in the initial stages of pre-project collaboration with service providers to assist in guiding and moulding the development of an appropriate project which will aim to improve levels of holistic wellbeing and consider pathways to belonging for former refugees.

Pre-Honours, Valerie gained 23 years of accounting and finance experience including: 10 years as Finance Manager for an Indigenous non-profit organisation, working with Indigenous communities and organisations in the Kullarri region of the Kimberley (WA); Chief Accountant and Financial Controller/Project manager roles (London based); a joint CFO/CEO position with a Sydney based group of finance and service companies; Financial Analyst for a large US based IT outsourcing company (Sydney). Valerie was also a Senior Recruitment Consultant with a multi-national organisation (London) where she assisted both job candidate and job provider clients, from a range of ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds; Lectured in small business management (WA); and ran her own WA based business. Valerie currently provides part-time support to the client of a local NDIS service provider.