HSW Program Advisory Committee
Professor Denise Kirkpatrick
Professor Kirkpatrick has extensive experience as a senior leader in Australian and international universities. Prior to her appointment as President of Nan Tien Institute, she was Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Western Sydney University. She has worked as a HE consultant for the OECD, the Commonwealth of Learning, the British Council and the Austrian Quality Assurance Agency. Professor Kirkpatrick has been recognised for her achievements in online learning, learning design and distance education teaching. She has been awarded research grants and published in the fields of online and distance learning, technology enhanced learning, higher education quality assurance and social media development.
Professor Rod Vickers
PhD (University of Canterbury), MSc (University of Canterbury), BSc Hons (University of Canterbury). Rod has spent 35 years as a teacher and researcher. He has extensive experience in academic leadership, including time as Head of School and Associate Dean – Teaching and Learning. As Dean of Studies Rod sees his role as implementing the values of the Nan Tien Institute and assuring academic standards as required by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.
Chris Zaslawski
Associate Professor Chris Zaslawski is a registered Chinese medicine practitioner (acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine) as well as a registered physiotherapist. He has been a short-term consultant for the World Health Organisation in the areas of education, research and clinical practice guidelines. Chris has post graduate qualifications in education (Masters of Health Science Education) and Science (PhD). Chris was the chair of the national committee for Chinese medicine for Standards Australia (SA) (2010-2016) and Inaugural President of the Chinese Medicine Council of New South Wales (2012-2018). More recently he was a member of the Chinese medicine accreditation committee of the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia (2013-2022).
Niki Hall
Niki is a progressive therapist and transformation coach utilising creative and integrative techniques from several different modalities including transpersonal arts therapy, psychology, process-oriented psychotherapy, NLP and life coaching, as well as Eastern philosophy, and energetic medicine. Her interests and experience are mostly related to neuro-diversity, social impact & inclusion, chronic illness, women, children and development of personal, transpersonal and life potential.
Sue Dean
Sue Dean has degrees in social work and nursing, adult education and women’s studies. She has taught for almost 30 years in the higher education sector, researching and publishing in the development of empathy and compassion in health care students and health care professionals. She taught communication for the Complementary Therapist for many years in a Traditional Chinese Medicine degree where mindfulness meditation was a core component of the subject. In addition to her academic work, Sue maintains clinical practice, working with marginalised populations such as women, substance use and people in custodial settings.
Ashleigh West
Ashleigh is a student in the Master of Health and Social Wellbeing program. As a creative she person works professionally as a human-centred designer with a personal focus on mindfulness and self development. This program has so far been the perfect melting pot to both grow both personally and professionally as well as to explore new subjects and topics. The learning environment and course structure has provided an immense amount of personal and professional enrichment and she is excited to see where this takes her in the future.
Zoe Zohs
Zoe has been teaching and mentoring meditation and movement practices since 2006 after beginning to practice in 2001.
Zoe is a certified dharma teacher through James Baraz, co-founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Centre. Zoe is also a Senior Yoga Teacher and Yoga Teacher Trainer and has been training yoga and meditation teachers since 2014. Zoe mentors in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program offered by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield and offers spiritual care to those at end of life in aged care. She is slowly completing her social work degree.