Dr Rachael Potter

Dr Rachael Potter is a Research Fellow at the Psychosocial Safety Climate Global Observatory within Justice and Society at the University of South Australia. She is an experienced researcher, analyst, and communicator with a variety of specialist areas of inquiry such as work stress, national policy, digital communication management and gender equality. She is an ‘outward-facing’ academic whose work cuts across the disciplines of psychology, work health and safety, public health, and law. Rachael’s methodological stance is that research should give a voice to members in society and enact tangible and beneficial change. In alignment with this ethos, her unique contribution to academe is that she advocates for workers by focusing on the broader ecological system in which they operate. This expands knowledge beyond the work design and organisational perspective to incorporate the surrounding policy context, thereby striving to change systems and wide-ranging behaviour. Rachael’s work has been cited in national and international documents that put forward policy changes to improve worker health and safety and she has presented at numerous international conferences.

She is an active team member on a five-year project (2020 – 2025) at the Psychosocial Safety Climate Global Observatory (PSC-GO) called ‘Mind the Worker: Transformative Change for a Human-Centered Corporate Climate’ led by distinguished Australian Research Council Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Professor Maureen Dollard. Rachael is currently leading the 2023 national review into workplace discrimination for pregnant persons, those on parental leave and parents returning to work, as well as the Australian Work Addiction project.