Susanna is an academic psychiatrist who is passionate about using multidisciplinary research collaborations to inform the highest quality evidence-based care for people with mental illness.
Alongside her role in the university, Susanna is concurrently employed at the Central Regional and Forensic Services. She has worked in a number of different areas across the mental health sector, including as Clinical Director and Director of Area Mental Health Services (DAMHS) of the Forensic and Rehabilitation Services covering courts, prisons and inpatient and community forensics across New Zealand’s lower north island and as New Zealand’s Acting Director of Mental Health at the Ministry of Health.
Susanna is the Chair of the New Zealand Committee of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.
Susanna obtained RANZCP Fellowship in 2008 and her Advanced Certificate in Forensic Psychiatry in 2010. She has a Masters in Evidence Based Medicine from Oxford University and her PhD focussed on mitigating harms in the treatment of serious mental illness.