Introducing Rebekah Lisciandro

Rebekah Lisciandro is passionate about developing her career in research, specifically in health sociology and health justice. Their goal is to help increase health equity, access, and reduce stigma for marginalised people, particularly in regional, rural, and remote areas of Australia.

In 2020, Rebekah graduated with a Class 1 Honours, receiving the University Medal for outstanding academic achievement in a combination of coursework studies and research undertaken at undergraduate level. Her honours thesis examined sociology’s contributions to the study of obesity between 2010 and 2019. She completed her Bachelor of Social Science in 2018, graduating with an Academic Medal.

Rebekah is currently undertaking a PhD in health sociology focusing on the health inequities of marginalised people in northern Queensland using embodiment and arts-based approaches. Health access is already limited in regional, rural, and remote areas compared to metropolitan areas, and those who experience marginalisation are more likely to experience discrimination within health services. An embodiment approach asks how these experiences change the ways in which people care for and understand themselves and their health, as well as the way they interact with health facilities in the future. Arts-based approaches support this by allowing participants to communicate about perceptual and emotional experiences that are often difficult to communicate verbally, like experiences of joy, grief, and pain.

Rebekah aims to examine what marginalised people’s experiences of limited access and discrimination means for them using a strengths-based approach to acknowledge how participants overcome and use their own resources to care for themselves and navigate systems. They hope to contribute to developing best practices to help centre marginalised people within health care.

Rebekah’s supervisory team consists of A/Prof Theresa Petray and Dr Kris McBain-Rigg.