Lisa Simmons

Dr Lisa Simmons is a Senior Lecturer in Health Professional Education in the College of Medicine and Dentistry at James Cook University and an Accredited Clinical Exercise Physiologist. She is an educational leader in health professional education whose work focuses on educator capability, authentic clinical education, student-led healthcare services, work-integrated learning and evaluation of learning, service and workforce outcomes.

Lisa has more than a decade of experience leading applied health education across clinical exercise physiology, health professional education and medicine. Her leadership is characterised by practical capability-building, collaborative system improvement and the application of educational evidence to sustainable teaching, assessment and clinical education practices. She creates authentic, equitable and sustainable learning environments that prepare health professionals for safe, person-centred and evidence-informed practice while strengthening the capability of the educators who teach them.

Lisa’s academic career began in Clinical Exercise Physiology, where she established and led the Master of Clinical Exercise Physiology and helped develop the JCU Exercise Physiology Clinic as a clinically authentic work-integrated learning environment. Her leadership strengthened curriculum architecture, accreditation preparation, placement systems, simulation, case-based learning and authentic assessment. From 2014 to 2024, the clinic supported approximately 460 student placements, delivered more than 30,000 community-based exercise physiology services, generated an estimated $450,000 in clinical revenue, and supported multiple clinical, research and community initiatives.

Lisa has also led student-led and industry-partnered clinical education models across community and hospital settings, including partnerships with Mater Private Hospital Townsville, Townsville Hospital and Health Service, and other clinical and community services. This work expanded authentic placement opportunities in cardiac rehabilitation, mental health, renal dialysis, cancer care and workplace health, strengthened regional health service delivery, and demonstrated the value of exercise physiology within multidisciplinary healthcare teams.

In her current role, Lisa leads teaching and curriculum development in postgraduate Health Professional Education, coordinating core subjects in Clinical Teaching, Innovative Teaching and Action Research. Her work supports multidisciplinary cohorts of working health professionals across medicine, nursing, allied health and education, with a focus on inclusive online learning, authentic assessment, reflective feedback, scholarly dialogue and practice-based inquiry. She also supports Professionalism, Education and Leadership assessment in the MBBS program, strengthening reflective practice, teamwork, assessment quality and professional values across early-year medical students.

Lisa co-leads the Teaching Excellence and Collaborative Hub, a College-wide faculty development initiative that strengthens teaching quality, scholarly teaching, assessment innovation, feedback practice and recognition pathways across the College of Medicine and Dentistry. Through TEACH, she supports clinicians, researchers and academics to develop effective teaching, supervision and assessment practice. This work reflects her broader leadership approach: inspiring colleagues to think differently about teaching, work collectively, and improve educational systems beyond individual subjects or immediate tasks.

Lisa’s research focuses on evaluating learning environments, student-led healthcare services, clinical placement performance, learner experience, educator development and sustainability. She developed the HELP-C Guiding Framework for evaluating learning, service and cost outcomes in student-led healthcare services and has published in health professional education and clinical education journals, including Focus on Health Professional Education, Australian Journal of Clinical Education and JMIR Research Protocols. Her work has been presented through ANZAHPE and national allied health conferences, contributing to sector conversations about clinical education, student-led healthcare services and evaluation of educational impact.

Across teaching, research and engagement, Lisa’s academic identity is centred on building people, practices and evidence systems that enable teaching excellence to be recognised, shared, evaluated and sustained. Her work connects subject and course innovation with program, College and profession-facing educational leadership, preparing health professionals for safe, person-centred and evidence-informed practice while strengthening educator capability across health professional education.