It’s with great pleasure that we congratulate Dr. Rohan Borschmann (Bio) for being the recipient of the Australian Psychological Society’s (APS) Early Career Research award! This award celebrates Rohan’s excellence in scientific achievement in psychological research at an early career stage and he will be presented with a plaque in recognition for his achievements at the Australian Psychological Society’s 2018 Congress
The congress is an integral event to showcase psychology in Australia and is held on a biannual basis. With the theme for 2016 being ‘Psychology united for the future’, a celebration of growth and unity for all psychological sectors in Australia, it will be exciting to see how the past theme has created a segway to this year’s theme of ‘Psychology advancing into a new age’ for new content to be discussed.
The 2018 congress will be held at 14 Darling Drive, Darling Harbour, Sydney from the 27th – 30th of September. More details about the event and the program can be found here: http://www.apscongress.com.au
Q&A with Dr Rohan Borschmann
Q: At this point in your career, how significant is it being awarded the Early Career Research award?
It’s really great to have the recognition of the Australian Psychological Society and it is definitely significant in terms of my own career progression. I am aware of some of the amazing mental health research that is being conducted right around Australia by early career psychologists and researchers, and so it is quite an honour to receive this award.
Q: The Australian Psychological Society’s 2018 congress theme is ‘psychology advancing into a new age’, what does this new age signify for your future work in justice health?
Young people in the justice system are characterised by multiple disadvantage, often coming from life trajectories involving neglect, abuse and complex trauma. It is encouraging to see that attitudes towards these extremely marginalised kids are slowly changing in the right direction, and in the current electronic age the opportunities for conducting high-quality research with genuine translational value are seemingly endless. Some of the work I am involved involves using linked administrative health data (i.e., Medicare records, hospital records, ambulance and emergency department records) to examine health trajectories, and so the amount of mental health information available to us is growing exponentially.
Q: What is your idea of a dream holiday?
A year travelling around South America with nothing booked further than a week in advance. Or possibly a diving holiday going from shipwreck to shipwreck for the same period of time.
Q: If you could only eat one type of food in the world for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I’d have to toss a coin between Thai/Malaysian food or chilled green grapes.
Q: What did you find rewarding and challenging in your past occupation as a prison psychologist?
It was a fascinating environment and I was constantly learning. It was actually my first full-time job as a qualified psychologist, so it did feel a bit like jumping in the deep end in terms of learning about different psychological disorders, behaviours and patterns of thinking. I was fortunate enough to work under Steve Mitchell (who was the Senior Psychologist at the time) and he taught me a lot of simple but very effective techniques. It was rewarding to see the improvements over time in both mental and physical health made by the people I worked with as they prepared for the transition back into the community. The biggest challenge was forcing myself to go home at the end of each day, as I absolutely loved the work!