Researcher Spotlight – Dr Mariel Lombard achieves her PhD

The Pymble Institute congratulates Dr Mariel Lombard (Deputy Head of Upper School) on the completion of her PhD thesis, Compassion Fatigue: Prevalence and correlates of compassion fatigue among Year Coordinators in Australian secondary schools. Dr Lombard studied at the School of Education, Western Sydney University.

For Mariel, the journey to complete her PhD was inspired by her own teaching experience:

“It’s so important that teachers who have first-hand experience are able to contribute in the research space.”

Mariel has a great deal of passion about wellbeing for young people, and she began her research by reflecting on the emotional exhaustion that comes from supporting students with high levels of need. Realising there was a gap in research on this topic, she took it upon herself to research the prevalence of compassion fatigue amongst wellbeing staff.

It is an honour to recognise Mariel’s achievement and to congratulate her on her contribution to educational research and scholarship.