Dr Heather Shepherd is a Senior Lecturer in the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her research and teaching roles are founded on her expertise as a health communication and health services researcher and her clinical background in critical care, reproductive and sexual health nursing, and health services management; currently teaching on quality and safety in healthcare, social contexts of health, population health, and the Australian health care system within Sydney Nursing School, as well as teaching and building curricula on health literacy, risk communication, quality improvement and implementation science within other schools of the Faculty of Medicine and Health. Dr Shepherd's research focuses on implementation science, shared decision-making, HP/patient communication, evidence-based medicine, health professionals’ perspectives, patient reported outcomes, and development and evaluation of tools to support health literacy and empowerment. Her research skills include design and coordination of multicentre trials, qualitative and quantitative methods. Heather has recently been appointed as one of the Implementation Science Program Leadership team with Sydney Health Partners, an Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre (AHRTC) and a unique collaboration between four major health services, a world-leading university and eleven affiliated medical research institutes, an Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre (AHRTC).