Dr Karen Block, University of Melbourne, Australia, is hosted by Professor Jenny Phillimore, The Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS)
Dr Block is a Research Fellow within the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Team in the Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Karen has an interest in qualitative methodologies, mixed methods research and research ethics. She is currently working on a range of projects involving children and young people with a focus on social inclusion, health inequalities, evaluating complex interventions and working in collaborative partnerships with the community. She is an active member of a number of interdisciplinary groups including Researchers for Asylum Seekers (RAS) and the Melbourne Refugee Studies Program.
Her recently completed doctoral project, Refugee Youth, Social Inclusion and Health, aimed to contribute to a deeper understanding of the issues impacting on social inclusion for newly-arrived adolescent and young adult refugees in Australia and to inform policy and program development relating to service provision for this population and was supported by a NHMRC postgraduate scholarship and a Sidney Myer Health Scholarship. Building on this, current projects focus on refugee background young people and families in a range of Australian settings. She is also a member of the Beyond Bushfires research team, engaged in a study of the medium to long term impacts on communities of the February 2009 'Black Saturday' bushfires in Victoria.