Claudia Virdun
Senior Lecturer (Teaching and Research)
College of Health and Enablement
Dr Claudia Virdun is a specialist palliative care nurse and academic whose work focuses on improving care for people with advanced serious illness across healthcare settings. Her clinical experience, combined with research and quality improvement activities, supports her commitment to strengthening palliative and end-of-life care services and outcomes for patients and families.
Drawing on both clinical and academic experience, Claudia takes a practice-informed approach to research. Her work is grounded in contemporary clinical and workforce challenges and aims to generate evidence that is relevant, applicable, and able to inform improvements in care delivery.
Claudia completed her doctoral studies in 2021, examining approaches to improving inpatient palliative care. Building on this work, her research explores how patients with palliative care needs, and their families and carers, can provide meaningful feedback about the quality of care they receive. This research seeks to ensure that service improvement efforts are informed by the experiences and priorities of people nearing the end of life. Claudia is also a Co-Investigator on two Commonwealth-funded national palliative care projects administered through End-of-Life Essentials (2026-2030). These projects focus on enhancing education and training for hospital-based acute care clinicians and developing a new suite of end-of-life and palliative care education resources for Australian general practitioners.
Alongside her research, Claudia contributes to the development of the current and future palliative care workforce through postgraduate education at Flinders University. Through the integration of education, research, and clinical improvement, her work aims to strengthen workforce capability and support high-quality, evidence-informed palliative and end-of-life care across Australia.
2013 – 2021 Doctor of Philosophy
University of Technology, Sydney - (conferred 19.01.21)
2000 - 2004 MSc in Advancing Professional Health Care Practice (Cancer Care)
King’s College, London, UK.
1994 -1999 Bachelor of Nursing (Honours)
Faculty of Nursing, Cumberland Campus, University of Sydney.
- Flinders University 2025 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Impact & Engagement – Winner in the ‘Early Career Researcher’ category
- Palliative Care Australia's 2025 National Palliative Care Awards - Finalist for the ‘outstanding achievement by an individual in palliative care’ category
- Flinders University College of Nursing and Health Sciences Teaching Excellence Award 2024 – Winner as a member of the postgraduate palliative care team
- Palliative Care Australia's 2021 National Palliative Care Awards – Winner in the ‘emerging researcher’ category
- Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing 2022 Emerging Nurse Researcher/Scholar Award - Nominee
- Awarded Fellowship of the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) in June 2021 in recognition of contributions to ACN and the nursing profession more broadly
- Awarded a 2017 Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from Australian Awards for University Teaching
- Awarded the UTS 2016 Inaugural Learning and Teaching Award for Integration of Indigenous Professional Capabilities into Curriculum – team award
- Awarded a UTS 2016 Learning and Teaching Citation – team award
- Awarded the Faculty of Health Dean’s Academic Excellence Award 2014 for Human Rights
- Nominated for the UTS Reconciliation Award 2014 and received a commendation
- Awarded the Inaugural UTS Faculty of Health Nurse of the Year, 2014
- Teaching within the postgraduate palliative and end of life care program
- HDR student supervision focused on palliative and end of life care
- Supporting non-HDR Masters students complete research projects within the postgraduate palliative care program
- Research work with a focus on: enabling patient and family voices to inform improvement work; implementation of change across varied clinical contexts; palliative care within the hospital setting
- Appointed to the Editorial Board of BMC Palliative Care
- Appointed as a member of the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying, Flinders University - Dec 2023, ongoing
- Appointed as an Associate Member for the Caring Futures Institute, Flinders University – Dec 2025, ongoing
- Appointed as a Fellow for the Australian College of Nursing (FACN) – June, 2021 – current. Awarded Fellowship in recognition of contributions to ACN and the nursing profession more broadly. Member from 2017
- Non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Full Member of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Palliative Care Association Inc (NATSIPCA) – June 2026, ongoing
- Appointed as the Balanced Academic for the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD) Management Committee (Feb 2024 – current)
- Appointed as Clinical Fellow in the Faculty of Health, Cancer and Palliative Care Outcomes Centre, at the Queensland University of Technology (Nov 2023 – Nov 2026)
- Non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Full Member of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Palliative Care Association Inc (NATSIPCA) – June 2026, ongoing
- Appointed as Adjunct Fellow, Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care through Clinical Research and Translation (IMPACCT), Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) – 2020 - current
- Invited member of the inaugural Palliative Care Australia National Expert Advisory Panel (NEAP) – 2020 - current
- Palliative Care Nurses Australia representative for the National Advisory Committee End of Life Law for Clinicians (ELLC) - September 2020 - current
- Palliative Care Queensland – Ordinary member, 2019 – current
- Member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing – 2015 - current
- Vice President, Palliative Care Nurses Australia (elected 2023 – Sept 2025); Conference Chair (2024); Secretary (elected 2020 - 2023); Conference co-chair (2022); Ordinary member (elected 2019)
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS AND REPRESENTATIVE POSITIONS
Current and ongoing
- Non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Full Member of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Palliative Care Association Inc (NATSIPCA) – June 2026, ongoing
- Appointed as an Associate Member for the Caring Futures Institute, Flinders University – Dec 2025, ongoing
- Appointed to the Palliative Care Nurses Australia Scientific Conference Committee for the 2026 conference
- Appointed to the Editorial Board of BMC Palliative Care – 2024, ongoing
- Vice President, Palliative Care Nurses Australia (elected 2023 – Sept 2025); Conference Chair (2024); Secretary (elected 2020 - 2023); Conference co-chair (2022); Ordinary member (elected 2019)
- Appointed as a Fellow for the Australian College of Nursing (FACN) – June, 2021 – current. Awarded Fellowship in recognition of contributions to ACN and the nursing profession more broadly. Member from 2017
- Appointed as the Academic Lead representative (Sept 2025 – ongoing) and previously the ECR/MCR Balanced Academic for the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD) Management Committee (Feb 2024 – Sept 2025)
- Appointed as Clinical Fellow in the Faculty of Health, Cancer and Palliative Care Outcomes Centre, at the Queensland University of Technology (Nov 2023 – Nov 2026)
- Appointed as Adjunct Fellow, Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care through Clinical Research and Translation (IMPACCT), Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) – 2020 - current
- Invited member of the inaugural Palliative Care Australia National Expert Advisory Panel (NEAP) – 2020 - current
- Palliative Care Nurses Australia representative for the National Advisory Committee End of Life Law for Clinicians (ELLC) - September 2020 - current
- Palliative Care Queensland – Ordinary member, 2019 – current
- Member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing – 2015 - current
- Palliative care
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South Australia 5042
South Australia | Northern Territory
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