Background

Billie is a perinatal researcher and practising midwife. She has focussed her career on research and education and is passionate about perinatal care improvement and an optimal start to life.

Billie's ongoing research is focussed on fetal well-being and stillbirth prevention and on fetal circadian behaviour. Her achievements to date demonstrate multiple strengths across academic and professional midwifery education and practice, with a strong focus on improving perinatal and maternal outcomes and advancing equity. Her work on fetal movements and stillbirth prevention has been heavily cited in clinical guidelines in Australia and New Zealand.

Billie has practised midwifery since 1998, initially as a continuity of care midwife and then as a tertiary and secondary hospital employed midwife. For 10 years Billie worked as a Midwife Educator driving multi-disciplinary clinical education, policy and guideline development, clinical audit, case-review and quality improvement.

Billie is recognized by her profession having been nominated as Expert Midwifery Advisor by the New Zealand College of Midwives (NZCOM) to provide opinions on cases reported to the Health and Disability Commission in New Zealand since 2012.

She has recently been elected to the role of Director on the Board of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand. She supports her local NZCOM region as co-editor of the region's newsletter.

Billie has experience lecturing in both undergraduate and postgraduate midwifery, including developing the inaugural Bachelor of Midwifery curriculum for Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington which commenced in 2020. She supervises Masters and PhD thesis students and peer reviews for a selection of international journals

Qualifications

2020: PhD, University of Auckland, New Zealand

2014: Masters of Midwifery (Thesis) with Distinction, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

1999: BMid, Massey University, New Zealand

Appointments

2021-ongoing: Honorary Research Associate Victoria University of Wellington

Awards

• 2018: President’s New Investigator Award for Best Oral Presentation, Annual Congress of the Perinatal Society to Australian and New Zealand
• 2018: President’s New Investigator Award for Best Oral Presentation (Midwifery), Annual Congress of the Perinatal Society to Australian and New Zealand
• 2016: University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship. University of Auckland
• 2013: New Investigator Award for Best Oral Presentation: Annual Scientific Meeting, Perinatal Society of New Zealand

Positions

• 2021-present: Senior Research Officer, Burnet Institute
• 2019-2021 Senior Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington
• 2018-2019 Teaching Fellow, Victoria University of Wellington
• 2016-present Registered Midwife (casual basis), Hutt Hospital, Hutt Valley Health
• 2016-2019 PhD Student, University of Auckland
• 2012-2016 Research Midwife, Multi-Centre Stillbirth Study, University of Auckland
• 2014-2015 Case Reviewer, Severe Acute Maternal Morbidity Audit, University of Otago
• 2005-2015 Midwife Educator, MidCentral Health, Palmerston North
• 2005-2015 Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee Local Co-ordinator, MidCentral Health, Palmerston North
• 2003-2005 Registered Midwife, MidCentral Health and Capital and Coast DHBs
• 1998-2000 Registered Midwife Community based caseloading. Domino Midwives