Distinguished Professor Kim Usher

Professor Usher AM, RN, PhD, FACMHN, FACN, is Professor of Nursing in the School of Health, Research Fellow, Ngangk Yira Research Institute for Aboriginal Health & Social Equity, and Adjunct Professor Murdoch and University of Technology Sydney, Australia. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing.

Professor Usher was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia in 2017 in recognition of sustained contribution to nursing and midwifery education and research. She was recognised for teaching by the award of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2008) and a James Cook University Vice Chancellor’s Award for Higher Degree Research Supervision in 2009. In 2018, Professor Usher was named in the top 10 nursing academics in Australia and New Zealand.

Professor Usher’s research outputs include more than 300 publications in high quality peer reviewed journals and numerous book chapters. Her current bibliometric statistics include: H-index – 58 (Google scholar), 41 (Scopus), and 20 (Web of science), and she has a FWCI of 2.65 for 2018-2023 with 33.30% of articles in the top 10% of publications (as at 14/02/2024).  She has served on Editorial Boards of key journals in her field, such as the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, and has served on the National Health and Medical Research Committee (NHMRC) Centre of Research Excellence panel, and regularly reviews for the Australian Research Council (ARC) and NHMRC project grants. She was appointed to the ARC College of Experts in 2022.

Professor Usher has successfully supervised over 40 PhD students to completion and continues to supervise many higher degree research students. Her students have received numerous awards and most publish numerous outcomes from the research during their period of candidature.