Michelle Cleary is Professor of Nursing at the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Sciences, CQUniversity, Australia (Sydney-based), and is an Adjunct Professor at Charles Darwin University (Australia), the University of Adelaide (Australia), and Charles Sturt University (Australia). Before joining CQUniversity in July 2021, Michelle was Professor (Mental Health Nursing), at the School of Nursing (formerly School of Health Sciences), University of Tasmania (Sydney-based), with roles including Associate Head Global, Associate Head Capacity and Capability, and Academic lead Sydney. Prior to joining UTAS in 2016, Michelle held senior academic appointments in nursing, including Director of Research at both Western Sydney University (Sydney) and at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

Michelle has led research in several areas in mental health and health care generally. Michelle’s collaborative program of original research aims to improve professional practice, consumer care and training and focuses on promoting mental health, well-being and resilience, assessment and management of symptoms for enhanced care, and translating research programs to strengthen health service delivery, education and evidence-based practice to improve outcomes.

Michelle has led a series of systematic reviews and other research studies to assess current practice, risk factors, prevalence and significance. This knowledge provides the basis to inform and improve understanding of the complexity of care across assessment, training and the provision of care.

Michelle is highly and widely published, and has been invited to write expert commentaries, several book chapters, monographs, and editorials in prestigious journals. Michelle has also received numerous research grants and scholarships and has presented papers at conferences and major meetings both locally and abroad.

Michelle is an Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing and the Journal of Advanced Nursing; Associate Editor and Column Editor of Issues in Mental Health Nursing; and Author-in-Residence of Nurse Author & Editor. Michelle has also prepared special issues for other leading nursing journals, and regularly reviews papers for several national and international journals.

Michelle has also provided advice and consultation to a variety of departments and organizations in relation to policies, guidelines and program development. Michelle is currently supervising PhD students, and has supervised/co-supervised students through to completion. She has strong research partnerships and is currently actively collaborating on a number of research projects with multidisciplinary researchers both locally and abroad.