Dr Kathryn Esparza | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

Kathryn Esparza is a highly experienced Clinical Psychologist who completed her PhD at the University of Queensland and Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology at Australian Catholic University. Kathryn has experience working in acute adult mental health and extensively in private practice – working with clients across the life-span and a range of mental health presentations. In particular, Kathryn is passionate about promoting strong family relationships and supporting parents as they navigate the various stages of their child’s development. She is a board-approved supervisor for provisional psychologists, and clinical registrar program principal supervisor. She has also provided supervision to case managers and social workers supporting humanitarian migrant families. Prior to completing her qualifications, Kathryn worked as a residential youth worker and an applied behaviour therapist for children with autism spectrum disorder.

In terms of research, Kathryn has a special interest in parenting and child adjustment, anxiety disorders, cross-cultural psychology, and migrant mental health. Kathryn's academic teaching experience spans the subject areas of cross-cultural psychology, advanced counselling, grief and loss, child development, and health psychology. The focus of her PhD research was finding means to promote the psychological well-being of migrant and refugee families following arrival in Australia. For this body of work Kathryn was the recipient of the Australia Postgraduate Award.