Dr Michele Verdonck | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

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Dr Michele Verdonck

  • Senior Lecturer, Occupational Therapy
  • School of Health
Email
Telephone
+61 7 5459 4868
Office location
SD-T-3-3.31
Campus
Sunshine Coast

Michèle, Senior Lecturer in Occupational Therapy, BSc (Wits), BSc Occupational Therapy (Hons), PhD (University of Ireland), has a strong interest in using technology in teaching and as a research topic. Her research interests focus on using technologies in everyday life, including the use by people with disabilities, occupational therapists and students. Michele is on the board of management of the Australian Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Association as the Communication Strategy Lead.

 

Michèle has been an integral member or the UniSC Occupational Therapy team since 2013. From 2020 to 2022, she served as the Occupational Therapy Discipline Lead. Michèle has worked as an occupational therapist at the National Rehabilitation Hospital (Dublin Ireland), at Natalspruit Hospital (Khatlehong, South Africa) and in private practice. She has a keen interest in spinal cord injury and neurological rehabilitation. Michele is a passionate educator having received a National Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, 2017, for enabling occupational therapy students to do, to be, to become and to belong through innovative pedagogy and effective use of technology.

Michele’s research collaborators include the University of Manitoba (Canda), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), University of Tehran (Iran), University of Limerick, (Ireland), University of Melbourne, Griffith University, University of Melbourne, James Cook University, University of South Australia, and University of Sydney.

Professional Memberships 

  • 2023—2026: Adjunct Professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy, College of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Manitoba, Canada.

  • 2017—2022: Research fellowship, Carnegie-WITS Alumni Diaspora Fellowship; Carnegie Corporation of New York and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

  • ARATA, Australian Rehabilitation & Assistive Technology Association
  • Occupational Therapy Australia 

Professional Awards

  • 2017, Department of Education and Training National Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning Australian Government
  • 2017, Vice Chancellor and President Equity and Diversity Award, USC – for reverse integration in wheelchair basketball
  • 2016, Advance Teaching Award Commendation: Able award – advancing the blended
  • 2015, Advance Teaching Award: - AQT award for Advancing Quality Teaching, USC
  • 2015, Advance Teaching Award: - ASE award for Advancing the student experience (team award)
  • 2015, Learning and Teaching Week People’s Choice Award, USC
  • 2014, Advance Teaching Award: Able Award – Advancing the Blended Learning Environment, USC, 2014
  • Health Research Board, Ireland, Research Fellowship for the Clinical Therapies, CTFP-06-15 (2007-2012)

Professional Social Media

Supervision

  • 6 PhD completions
  • 1 Masters Completion
  • Now Accepting Masters and Doctoral Students in the area of assistive technology

Research Grants

Grant/Project name

Investigators

Funding body & A$ value

Year(s)

Technology Enabled Homes for People with Spinal Cord and Traumatic Brain Injury

Verdonck (Principal investigator), Ripat, Dermody, Kean, Merollini & Fowler,

The National Injury Insurance Agency, Queensland, NIISQ. $156,240

2024-2026

Youth Engagement in Sustainability, YES: Cultivating occupational therapy students’ research competency.

Verdonck (Co-chief investigator), Scheepers, Stafford, Davies, Von Deest, Chilman.

Department of Environment and Science QLD.

$20,000

2022

 

Mainstream Smart Technology-Use Among People with Disabilities,

Verdonck (Primary investigator), Kean, Dermody.

DVCRI Internal Funding Program UniSC CONNECT Scheme.

$17,349

2023

Faculty development for sustained excellence in simulation education.

Dodd, Bogossian, Tulloch, Verdonck (Associate investigator), & Swift.

Collaborative Initiatives Scheme 2023—Learning & Teaching Grants, funded by School of Health.

$10,000

2023

Empowering Healthy Ageing: Building a Web-based Gateway for Holistic Well-being

Dermody, Askew, Nigel Barr, Davies, Russell, Schaumberg, Shibl, Tulloch, Verdonck (Associate investigator), Wadsworth, Ward, & Wright.

DVCRI Internal Funding Program UniSC GROW $46,685

2023-2024

Evaluation of a community awareness and capacity building project. Funded by

Oprescu, Verdonck, & Gray

Suncoast Spinners Wheelchair Association

$6,000

2018-2021

 

Establishment and progressive refinement of a high-performance Paralympic student-athlete program at an Australian University: A participatory action research project.

Michele Verdonck and Florin Oprescu

Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) Centre of Excellence for Applied Sport Science Research. $219,000

2016-2019

Increasing engagement opportunities for people with physical disabilities: The role of reverse integration in sport

Michele Verdonck

Faculty Research Collaboration Grant. $7000

2017-2018

Reverse Inclusion Spinners basketball workshop

 

Diversity Week Activity Grant. $1000

2017

Learning, Teaching, Practice: A common understanding and integration of sustainability within Nutrition and Dietetics

Michele Verdonck

USC, Exploratory Learning and Teaching Grant. $40990

2016-2017

Supporting Innovative Blended Learning – Exploring the experience of learning and teaching in a technology‐enabled tiered lecture theatre

Michele Verdonck

USC, Exploratory Learning and Teaching Grant. $36091.53

2015

What meaning do individuals who use wheeled mobility devices (including wheelchairs and scooters) ascribe to these devices?

Michele Verdonck (lead researcher)

CHI collaborative Seed Grant. $1519.26

2015

Using Pebble+ to track learning and create stepping-stones to development of an ePortfolio for transition to practice in occupational therapy

Lead: Anita Hamilton

Co-researcher: Michele Verdonck

Enhancement Learning and Teaching Grant. $133972.47

2015

Mapping and evaluating the flipped classroom at USC: Integrative teaching and learning

Lead: Jane Taylor

Co-researcher: Michele Verdonck

Enhancement Learning and Teaching grant. $429600

2015

Ireland Research Fellowship for the Clinical Therapies

Michele Verdonck

Health Research Board

CTFP-06-15 Funding awarded: €256,528.11/ Aus. $323 293.22

2007-2012

Research areas

  • assistive technology
  • mainstream technology
  • smart technology
  • occupational therapists use of technology
  • environmental control systems
  • spinal cord injury and neurological conditions
  • parasport and adaptive/disabled sport and reverse integration
  • dual pathways for parasports students
  • scholarship of learning and teaching

Teaching areas

  • OCC311 Enabling Occupation: The Adult
  • OCC432 Occupational Therapy Innovation (double credit honours project course)

Michèle's specialist areas of expertise include: the use of technologies in meaningful occupation,supporting occupational therapists in the use of mainstream technologies in everyday clinical practice, spinal cord injury rehabilitation, teaching wheelchair skills; wheelchair transfers, the application of the Bobath approach in incomplete spinal cord injury rehabilitation and functional electrical stimulation.

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