ProfessorGenevieve Pepin

Professor Genevieve Pepin is an experienced mental health occupational therapist, educator, and researcher with a strong track record in eating disorders, mental health, carers research and occupational therapy. She is the Higher Degree Research Director in the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University. She joined the Occupational Science and Therapy program at Deakin in 2007 after having worked across diverse mental health services, taught, and undertaken research projects at Laval University, Sherbrooke University, and McGill University in Canada.
As an educator, Professor Pepin strives for excellence in the academic and practical education of Deakin’s occupational therapy students, ensures they are confident, competent, and work-ready graduate. Her reputation as an occupational therapy scholar rests on a unique expertise and knowledge of interventions and conceptual model of practice that have influenced occupational therapy practice, research, and education for decades.
The major focus of her work is at the intersectionality of innovative, impactful, and translational eating disorders and carers research and occupational therapy in mental health research, education, and practices that are contemporary, inspiring, and transformational. Professor Pepin's research is multidisciplinary while having a strong occupational therapy foundation advancing this discipline in a field of research where it is still emerging. Her research is global. Its reach is supported through national and international partnerships. It is disseminated in varied formats and platforms to reach different audiences.
Built on almost 20 years’ work in the area of mental health and eating disorders with national and international leaders in the field, Professor Pepin has established herself as a significant contributor to eating disorders research. Her research has led to changes in practice and services as demonstrated by her invitation to join the Advisory Committee for the Development of the Australian Eating Disorders Research & Translation Strategy 2021-2031. She is a member of the executive group of the Australian Eating Disorder Research and Translation Centre. She is the co-lead of the Lived-Experience and Co-Production stream of the Centre and a member of the National Eating Disorders Research Consortium.
Some of her other roles include Director and Chair of the Research Committee at Eating Disorders Families Australia, Director of the Occupational Therapy Council of Australia, member of the Victorian Allied Health Mental Health Reference Group and of the National Strategy Eating Disorders Workforce Development Working Group.