HONOURS STUDENT PROFILE

Ruby Stocker

Ms Stocker is now studying medicine as a postgraduate student at Deakin University.

Ruby Stocker focused on the mental health of pregnant women in Vietnam for her honours project during 2019. Prior to this, Ms Stocker completed biomedical science at Monash University (Clayton).

Ms Stocker has always been interested in both global health and women’s health. However, it wasn’t until talking with Professor Jane Fisher about possible options that she became fully aware of the exciting projects taking place in the Global and Women’s Health unit, and subsequently joined the unit for her honours year.

Ms Stocker’s honours project involved secondary analyses of data from two studies previously conducted in Ha Nam, a northern rural province in Vietnam (one in 2006, the other in 2010), assessing whether socioeconomic development can impact antenatal mental health. The data showed that social and economic policies can be effective levers in improving population-level perinatal mental health.

Ms Stocker says she’s been very inspired by the intelligent people working in Global and Women’s Health.

“I have loved learning about the areas that people work in, their careers, and the ideas and change that they’ve contributed to,” she says.

Ms Stocker, who is from Mt Eliza on Australia’s Mornington Peninsula, says she is passionate about human rights and health, and is motivated by the challenges faced by women in other countries.

“I’m inspired by people who are living in much more difficult circumstances than I am, especially young women who may have no access to education, and who may already be married and have children,” says Ms Stocker.

Ms Stocker has been an ambassador for One Girl, an organisation which aims to give all girls in Sierra Leone and Uganda the opportunity to go to school. Through One Girl, Ms Stocker says she has learnt about and been inspired by the power of education, “not only for each individual girl, but for her family and her community.”

“I’m interested to see how the opportunity of an education can improve health outcomes,” Ms Stocker adds.

Regarding global health, Ms Stocker believes the future looks very dynamic and exciting.

“I believe that global health will become more powerful, because of the ability (and challenges!) to create change at such a large scale,” says Ms Stocker.

Despite this, she feels that improvements need to be made in terms of research translation, engaging a strong local research approach.

“There’s so much valuable research being conducted in the area of global health, but what difference does it make if it’s not shared or understood by those who need it most?” Ms Stocker says.

Ms Stocker hopes that global health, and particularly global health research evolves to include more local researchers as she feels this is the way forward in improving “the translation of meaningful research in to the health sector and the community.”

“People who understand the problem and culture at the deepest level are so valuable to research,” she says.