As a midwife and public health researcher, Lisa has more than 25 years’ experience working in low-resource settings, including Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia.
Her current program of research is focused primarily in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where she established a multidisciplinary maternal and child health research program at the PNG Institute of Medical Research in Goroka (2010-15). Her program of research has included access to care during pregnancy and childbirth; unsafe abortion; teenage pregnancy; STIs in pregnancy and an intervention to reduce the risk of postpartum haemorrhage among women who give birth in remote, rural communities. She is a chief investigator and clinical lead of a world-first cluster randomized crossover trial (the WANTAIM trial) of antenatal point-of-care STI testing and treatment to improve birth outcomes in high-burden, low-resource settings.
Through an ongoing academic position at the PNGIMR (2015-date), she continues to lead field studies and intervention trials to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes in Papua New Guinea.