Rachel Coghlan is a public health professional with experience spanning clinical practice and international health research, policy, and advocacy. She has worked across health policy and advocacy within international NGOs including World Vision and Save the Children. Her policy experience includes child health, healthy aging, climate change, and palliative care. Rachel is a practicing palliative care physiotherapist in Melbourne. She is a Board Director of Palliative Care Australia, a member of the Palliative Care in Humanitarian Aid Situations and Emergencies Network, and a member of the Australian Palliative Care-COVID-19 Working Group.

Rachel is currently completing a Doctor of Philosophy at the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership, Deakin University. Her research explores the place of palliative care in humanitarian emergencies and crises. The study of palliative care in crises is in its infancy, and prioritization of palliative care by humanitarian agencies has been limited. Her qualitative research investigates how palliative care is currently conceived and enacted in the protracted conflict setting of the Gaza Strip by healthcare workers and community members, with an aim to understand how such care might be better supported in the future.

Rachel has been awarded a Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Non-Profit Leadership through the Australian-American Fulbright Commission for her research, practical work, and leadership on palliative care in humanitarian crises. She will be spending time at JHU’s Center for Humanitarian Health to undertake advocacy amongst humanitarian experts and organizations on the importance of palliative care; and to identify potential future research opportunities, including where palliative care might fit into existing humanitarian health research priorities such as cancer care, mental health and psychosocial care, and pandemic planning and response. She will be visiting JHU between March to July 2023.

Rachel lives with her family and chocolate Labrador in an old converted church in country Victoria, Australia.