Dr Waling is Senior Research Fellow in Social Care, in a cross appointment with the Division of Health Research and Sociology, and the Research Support Service as part of the NIHR. In this role she is supporting the development of the research program in social care concerning young people and children, alongside her research interests in sexual health, sexual practices and technology, and LGBTIQA+ health and wellbeing. She is also supporting the work of the RSS which helps researchers develop bids for research programs including the NIHR, as well as other large funders such as Wellcome.
Her research interests include:
- Young people and children in social care
- men and masculinities
- young people and sexual health/sexual literacies
- sexual practices and technology
- sexual comunication and consent
- LGBTIQA+ health and wellbeing
Her methodological expertise includes:
- Qualitative research methods (interviews, focus groups, qualitative surveys, vignette methodologies)
- Recruitment of difficult-to-engage communities and populations
- Socio-constructionist and interpretavist paradigms
- Poststructuralism
- Thematic analysis, discourse analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis
- Feminist and queer approaches
- Reseach ethics
Dr Waling completed her undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Arts Honours) at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada (2006-2010), and her PhD in Sociology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia (2011-2015). During this time she took on several research assistantships and teaching duties, including the coordination of several large undergraduate units at Monash University in gender and sociology.
From 2015-2024 she worked at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS), La Trobe University and later, the Department of Public Health (DPH) at La Trobe University in Australia. Here she supported, or led, several large multi-method projects exploring young men, intimacy and sexual consent, men’s bodywork practices and use of performance and image enhancing drugs, LGBTIQA+ mental health, wellbeing and suicide prevention, LGBTIQA+ ageing, physical health, and aged care, technology, sex and intimacy, and young people and sexual literacies. This included a prestigious Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) exploring how young, cisgender heterosexual men understand and engage sexual communication, consent, and intimacy during sexual encounters. During her time she also developed the Research Impact portfolio, which supported the centre in planning and identifying pathways to impact for future grants, impact case studies, and promotion.
During her time in DPH she coordinated a Master’s of Public Health specialisation in Sex, Health and Society to support students seeking to work on sexual and reproductive health, and working with diverse communities including LGBTIQA+ people. She was the Deputy Research and Industry Engagement Coordinator, where she worked with DPH to support the development of its teaching and research staff in terms of research collaborations, grants, knowledge transfer/translation, and publications. She was also co-chair of the LGBTIQA+ Working Group and a member of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and a previous member of academic board.
She has considerable experience working in multi-disciplinary research teams that involve clinical practictioners, criminologists, statisticians legal professionals, and social workers. She also has extensive experience in working with community, government, industry, and NGO research partners, with a keen understanding in how to develop long-lasting partnerships. Alongside this, she has knowledge in working with media, having completed more than 70+ radio/podcast, and text/print interviews with various outlets, and written more than 18 articles for The Conversation to support research engagement with the public and research translation.
Dr Waling has earned several awards for her research. These include the La Trobe University Vice Chancellor's Excellence in Research Impact award for her work on LGBTIQA+ experiences of crisis support services (2021), and the Emerald Literai Award for her paper published in Safer Communities, among others.
Young People and Sexual Literacies
Dr Waling's first main research area involved the exploration of young people's engagement with sexual literacies. She has worked across a range of projects investigating knowledge and behaviours around sexual and reproductive health, and how young people collate and make sense of sexual health information from a variety of resources. She is currently on a large Department of Health (Australia) project exploring how to support young people in developing sexual literacies, also working with parents and teachers.
Current
Recent Projects
Sexual Consent, Intimacy, and Sexual Practices
Dr Waling's second main research area involves better understanding sexual communication and sexual consent practices among young men and women in heterosexual relationships. Her work explores how sexual communication is understood and enacted during sexual encounters, and the implications of these practices for sex education and gendered violence prevention. This also includes her body of work on how young men engage in sexting and the production of dick pics, and the use of biomedical, biodigital, and biomechanical technologies for sex and intimacy.
Current
Recent Projects
LGBTIQA+ Health and Wellbeing
Dr Waling has spent several years working across a variety of research projects focused on improving the mental and physical health and wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ people. This includes her highly impactful work on LGBTIQA+ use of crisis support services during times of mental health or personal distress, with key findings highlighting that more than 71% of LGBTIQA+ refused the use of a service during their most recent crisis. This has led to significant policy change in Australia regarding the provision of specialist LGBTIQA+ services in mental health. She has also worked in the ageing and aged care space, exploring how LGBTIQA+ people engage with aged care and reflecting on their ageing experiences. Building on this body of work, Dr Waling is a Co-investigator on a large Medical Research Future Fund developing interventions to support better care and inclusion for LGBTIQA+ older people in residential care.
Current Projects
Recent Projects
Dr Waling has earned more than $3.8million (AUD) or $1.96million GPB in research funding across her career. Recent successes in the last five years include (In AUD):
- Australian Reseach Council
- $428k Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (2020-2024)
- Young men, sex, and sexual intimacy/consent
- $338k Discovery Project (2019-2022)
- Technology, sexual practices, law
- Medical Research Future Fund
- $999k (2022-2028)
- LGBTIQA+ and residential aged care intervention
- Northwestern Melbourne Primary Health Network
- Commonwealth Department of Health
- $1.396m (2022-2026)
- Young people, parent, teachers, and sex education
- $230,000 (2021-2022)
- Young people and digital sexual literacies
