Research Team – WORK ACROSS LIFE & CAREERS

The WALC research initiative is led by passionate researchers and professionals with backgrounds in organisational psychology, management, health, human resources, cognition, among other. They are working together to understand and transform work, so that we all can have more meaningful, healthy and thriving careers and lives.

Professor Sharon K Parker
Director WALC research

Sharon is the Director of the Work Across Life & Careers research (WALC). She is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Professor of Organisational Behavior at Curtin University. Her research focuses on job and work design, and she is also interested in proactive behavior, change, well-being, development, and job performance. She has published more than 80 internationally refereed articles, including in top tier journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and the Annual Review of Psychology.

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Sharon is also a Chief Investigator in the ARC’s Centre of Excellence in Population Aging Research (CEPAR) and leads the ‘Organisations’ and the Mature Workforce’ research stream.

She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the US Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology, the Associate Editor for the Academy of Management Annals, a past Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology, and she has served on numerous editorial boards.

Sharon has attracted competitive research funding worth over $40,000,000 and has worked as a researcher and consultant in a wide range of public and private organisations.

Caroline Knight, PhD

Caroline’s research focuses on the role and effectiveness of interventions to increase work engagement in organisations, however, other projects include investigating depression in the workplace and the motivations of sports volunteers. Caroline has engaged widely with organisations, including the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, and Sheffield City Council, with whom she worked for a period of months as a researcher and consultant on a project to increase employee engagement.

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She completed her PhD from the University of Sheffield, December 2016. During her PhD she conducted the first systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the role and effectiveness of interventions to increase work engagement in organisations. She was also part of a team conducting a participatory action research intervention to increase work engagement in nursing staff on acute elderly care National Health Service (NHS) wards. During her PhD she also collaborated with colleagues and organisations, for example, acting in a consultative role to Sheffield City Council to increase employee engagement, and contributing to a review of the motivations of sports volunteers for Sport England, UK. She also worked with colleagues from the UK and Chile to complete a review of depression in the workplace.

Caroline received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Psychology from Durham University, UK, in 2003. After graduating, she worked full time as an Assistant Psychologist in a Medium Secure Unit in Yorkshire, UK, for adults with mental health issues, learning disabilities, challenging behaviour and a forensic background. Her love of academic work and research drove her back to university and she completed her Masters in Research Methods in Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, in 2011, followed by a PhD at the Institute of Work Psychology, Sheffield Management School, UK, in 2016.

Caroline is a member of the Academy of Management (AOM), Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), European Association of Work and Organisational Psychology (EAWOP), and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

Daniela Andrei, PhD

Daniela completed all her studies at Babes-Bolyai University in Romania where she obtained a PhD and a Bachelor degree in Psychology, as well as a Master degree in Human Resources Psychology and Marketing. Starting with 2008, she also worked as an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department of the same university, lecturing and teaching seminars in Work Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Organizational Psychology. During this time, she also acquired extensive consulting experience having worked as a senior research expert in several Human Resources Development projects co-funded by the European Social Fund.

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Daniela joined UWA in 2012, after she was awarded the highly competitive GO8 European Fellowship, under the supervision of Professor Mark Griffin. She returned in 2013 working as a research fellow at the Accelerated Learning Laboratory and in early 2017 she transferred to UWA Business School, working across the Centre for Transformative Work Design and Centre for Safety.

Daniela’s current research activities revolve around unpacking the antecedents of work design behaviours, understanding leadership functions and team processes in incident management teams, as well as the interplay between safety and employee wellbeing. In close collaboration with industry and regulators, Daniela coordinated several large-scale applicative projects involving data collection across several countries and industries.