Vanessa Sparke

Vanessa is an Academic and Lecturer in the discipline of Nursing and Midwifery, and Course Coordinator of the Graduate Certificate of Infection Control at James Cook University (JCU).

Vanessa is an experienced Infection Prevention and Control (IP&C) professional with a specific interest in rural and remote areas. and is currently undertaking her PhD (Improving infection prevention and control in a rural hospital in the Solomon Islands: A Participatory Action Research approach). Vanessa has worked as an IP&C clinical nurse in both large metropolitan hospitals and rural and remote areas of Australia. Vanessa’s other professional interests include critical care nursing, public health, and disaster preparedness and recovery and has travelled to Vietnam to teach disaster preparedness to communities living on the Mekong Delta (AusAID funded), and to the Solomon Islands to assess IP&C practices in a rural hospital (WHO funded). Vanessa is an active member of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC) LMI Special Interest Group and Education & Professional Development Committee.