We’re profiling nominees in the lead up to the 2014 Macquarie University Research Excellence Awards on Thursday 2 October.
This week meet Dr Sharron O’Neill from the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance,who is a nominee for an Excellence in Research – Business, Management and Economics Award.
How long have you been a researcher at Macquarie?
Three years last month.
I was drawn to research because…
I love puzzles and ‘connecting the (conceptual) dots’ – and discovery is really satisfying.
What would be an ‘elevator pitch’ of your research area?
Work health and safety is an important issue with significant human, social and economic costs. My research aims to improve understanding of work health and safety performance so that managers, and a range of other stakeholders, can make informed (better) decisions and, ultimately, improve global work health and safety outcomes.
In layman’s terms, what is the wider impact of your research?
My research is helping improve transparency by changing the way work health and safety is measured and reported. First, by shifting the focus of work-related injury and illness data from high frequency, low consequence outcomes to measures that better inform about low frequency but high consequence outcomes. Second, through research into positive performance measures (lead indicators) of workplace risk.
Who is/was your biggest research mentor?
My mum. Always reading, asking questions and wanting to know why.
If I were given $1M in research funding, the first thing I would do is…
Engage a team to develop industry-based injury causation taxonomies and provide the results to small to medium enterprises to improve their understanding of risk factors and inform their decision-making.
In ten years I see my research…
Reflected in mainstream global WHS reporting practice.
My favourite and/or most proud research moment was when…
Presenting my research at an industry conference last year and seeing practitioners excited about implementing the findings in their organisations. Translating theory to practice – fantastic!