MsEmma Cowie

Emma is a paediatric occupational therapist, academic, and mid-career researcher with over 15 years of clinical experience across early intervention, schools, community, and private practice settings in the Geelong and Western Melbourne regions. Her clinical expertise includes neurodiversity-affirming practice, sensory processing, interoception, self-regulation, and participation-focused intervention for children and families.

As Deputy Course Director within the Bachelor of Occupational Therapy at Deakin University, Emma contributes to curriculum design and implementation, student engagement and experience, and leadership and support of the occupational therapy teaching team. She teaches across paediatric-focused and honours-level units and is actively involved in occupational therapy practice education and workforce development.

Emma coordinates the award-winning Community-Based Practice Education Program, a schools-based placement program for third-year occupational therapy students that supports authentic community engagement and interprofessional learning. Through her leadership and teaching roles, she is committed to fostering reflective, evidence-informed, and participation-focused occupational therapy practice.

In addition to her university teaching and leadership roles, Emma is Chair of the Geelong region paediatric occupational therapy professional interest group (Weegrots), where she collaborates with local occupational therapists on research and practice-based initiatives that strengthen links between clinical practice, professional learning, and evidence-informed care. She is also a member of the Deakin ORBIT Research Team, which aims to strengthen occupational therapy research capacity and collaboration at Deakin University, and leads the Deakin paediatric occupational therapy research team.

Emma has an active research program and growing publication record. Her research interests include interoception, self-regulation and sensory processing, paediatric occupational therapy practice and intervention, support for new graduate occupational therapists, and interprofessional collaboration between occupational therapists and educators. She actively supervises honours and master’s research students and is committed to collaborative and translational research that informs paediatric occupational therapy practice, education, and workforce development.