Dr Victoria Loblay

Dr Victoria Loblay is an anthropologist working as a Research Fellow with the Youth Mental Health and Technology Team at the Brain and Mind Centre. She is also a member of the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre and works closely with the Leeder Centre for Health Policy, Economics and Data. In these roles, Victoria explores the role and value of technologies (e.g. simulation models, mHealth and e-monitoring systems) in the implementation and adaptation of health promotion programs and health policy decision-making. She works closely with community members, practitioners and policymakers – as co-researchers and experts of local contexts – to understand the day-to-day experiences of program implementation. Through collaborative ethnographic methods, Victoria seeks to contribute to more critical and careful ways of conceptualising and adapting health-related interventions.

Prior to her work in public health, Victoria obtained her PhD in Anthropology from Macquarie University and holds an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. For her PhD research, Victoria conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Australia and India, examining conceptions of gender in relation to public discourse on the issue of sex selection and how this intersected with experiences of prenatal diagnostic technology. Following her PhD, Victoria spent time outside of academia, training and working as a birth doula to provide support to women during childbirth. This work gave her an appreciation for the intricate dynamics of practice worlds. This experience prompted her to redirect her research career to applied public health research, where she felt that she could productively synthesise learnings from practice to inform health policy.