Lani and Margaret

Lani recently completed a Bachelor of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) at Curtin University, Western Australia. She is a nurse by profession, with 13 years of experience in clinical and public health nursing practice.

In Australia, Lani has taken up practical placements at two Perth hospitals - as a HSE Advisor Trainee and a Safety Management Plan mentee. She also has work experience at SGS, a world-leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company.

Lani is also a member of the Fijian Nursing Association, the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, UN Women of Australia, and the HSE Student Club. She has also volunteered at the Australian National Breast Cancer Foundation and on the Rottnest Island Environmental Campaign, and through other volunteer activities at Curtin University.

Lani intends to use the skills and experiences gained during her degree to assist policymakers in making informed evidence-based decisions on workers' health and safety within the health industry. Through a justified case study, she will recommend for the impacts of manual handling to be considered, particularly on nurses' health and in intensive care units, and for control measures to be implemented, such as the use of lifting equipment to bear loads over 30 kilograms.

Lani is keen to promote continued professional and academic development of nurses, so they can rise from contemporary clinical roles to leadership roles in any given setting, locally and globally.

Margaret lectures in Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) at the University of Queensland. For a decade prior to this, she was based at the School of Public Health at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and she has held a long-standing appointment as a senior consultant with AusSAFE Consulting.

Through AusSAFE Consulting, Margaret has undertaken a range of OH&S projects for the Australian government and industry. She also has supported the Hanoi School of Public Health in Vietnam with an OH&S curriculum, and the State Government of Malacca (Malaysia) with a 200-hour OH&S course that has since been accredited by NIOSH, Malaysia.

Margaret is one of only 70 Certified Professional Ergonomists in Australia and is the current National President of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia. She also is a lifetime member of the Safety Institute of Australia and Certified Charted Generalist OH&S Professional, and she holds registration as an Occupational Therapist. She holds board directorships with the Occupational Therapy Council (Australia and New Zealand) and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia.

She also holds two government appointments; as a member of the WHS Enforceable Undertakings Panel and as a member of the Health Panel of Assessors (Occupational Therapy).