UC researcher receives Fulbright NZ Travel Award
Published by Communications and Development
18 January 2010
A Canterbury University psychologist will present her research on childhood brain injury to an international audience in March after receiving a Fulbright New Zealand Travel Award.
 |
Dr Audrey McKinlay |
Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Audrey McKinlay (Psychology) will head to the United States in early March where she will discuss aspects of her research at two conferences – the International Brain Injury Association’s (IBIA) 8th World Congress and the inaugural International Paediatric Brain Injury Society (IPBIS) conference. Both are being held in Washington DC from 10 to 14 March.
She also plans to visit the Children's National Medical Center to view paediatric brain injury rehabilitation programmes and discuss research during her three week trip and has also been asked to present her research at West Virginia University in Morgantown where she will also spend time with a colleague preparing a research paper.
Dr McKinlay said she was excited about the award as it gave her a chance to talk about her research with others working in the same field, develop collaborations and exchange ideas.
“It’s not often that you get researchers from around the world, who are working in the same area together in one place, talking about what they’re doing and sharing ideas. It’s a great opportunity for me.”
The aim of the Fulbright New Zealand Travel Awards is to give New Zealand academics, artists or professionals a chance to travel to the United States for a period of between 12 to 90 days to present their work to American audiences. The awards have a value of up to $5000 and about 12 awards are made each year.
Dr McKinlay began investigating brain injury in children while doing her master’s degree. She has been looking at the long-term behavioural, psychiatric and cognitive outcomes for children who suffered such injuries using data from the Christchurch Health and Development Study, a longitudinal study of a birth cohort of 1265 children born in Christchurch in mid-1977. The study was initiated by researchers at the University of Otago, Christchurch School of Medicine & Health Sciences.
At the IBIA conference Dr McKinlay will present a paper looking at issues of drug and alcohol dependency and criminal behaviour at 25 years among those in the cohort who experienced a childhood head injury, while at the IPBIA conference she will discuss possible predictors of traumatic brain injury among children.
“These factors can include parental stress, parenting style or childhood behaviours,” said Dr McKinlay. “We’ve been able to get a huge amount of data on this from the cohort and the hope is that by having an understanding of these risks we might be able to prevent such injuries happening in the first place.”
Dr McKinlay is currently working on several projects on paediatric brain injury, including one on how ongoing problems from these injuries can be mitigated or stopped.
“What I want to find out is if parents are given information at the time of the accident on the potential problems they and their child might experience, is it enough to stop the problems? Or do families need more than that, such as ongoing rehabilitation and, if so, what kind of rehabilitation do they need?”
Dr McKinlay is also on the board of the newly formed IPBIS and is hoping to get more New Zealand researchers looking at paediatric issues of brain injury involved in the group.
“It would be good to be able to set up a network within New Zealand so we can exchange ideas and support each other so we’re not all working in isolation.”
Anyone interested in being part of the IPBIS can contact Dr McKinlay for more information.
For further information please contact:
Dr Audrey McKinlay
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Psychology
Ph: (03) 3642 987 ext 7885
Mob: 027 449 5550
audrey.mckinlay@canterbury.ac.nz