Professor Christy E Newman

Professor Christy E. Newman (they/them) is a social researcher of health, gender, and sexuality at the Centre for Social Research in Health, and Deputy Dean Research in UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture. 

Over the last 20 years, Christy has contributed expertise on qualitative social research, critical health sociology, and gender and sexuality diversity to multidisciplinary projects on the social aspects of HIV and sexual health, foregrounding community perspectives and partnerships.

More recently, Christy has extended this scope through new collaborations investigating LGBTQIA+ inclusion across other areas of health and social care, including reproductive health, digital health, mental health, disability, dementia care, violence prevention, and cancer prevention. 

Christy is committed to supporting community and peer-led approaches to health research, and amplifying the voices of populations historically neglected or collapsed into broader ‘LGBTQIA+’ categories, particularly trans and gender diverse people, bi+ and other multi-gender attracted people, and people with innate variations of sex characteristics (intersex).

This research has been funded by >$18 million in grants from the Australian Research Council (Discovery and Linkage grants), National Health and Medical Research Council (MRFF, Project and Partnership grants), public sector and for-purpose health agencies. 

Christy is regularly consulted on inclusive health, education and research practices as a social researcher, a queer/bi+ and non-binary person and parent, and as a co-lead of the UNSW Community of Practice for inclusive research with Queer and Trans people, and people with variations of sex characteristics (Intersex; or CoPQTI).

Selected past projects and outputs include: 

• Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Rights
• Social Perspectives on Trans Health
• Gender diversity and social change: transgressions, translations, transformations
• my health, our family: documenting stories of family life in the context of HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C (DP160100134)
• What we do well: strengths based research about Aboriginal young people's sexual wellbeing (LP170100190)
• Dynamic Gender Project
• Queer families: valuing stories of diversity, adversity and belonging
• Trust in digital health among communities affected by BBVs and STIs in Australia
• Sustaining sexual and reproductive health through COVID-19 pandemic restrictions
• Queer generations: belonging and citizenship among gender and sexual minority youth
• StraightMSM study: heterosexually-identified men who have sex with men
• Understanding disparities in PrEP access
• Managing HIV in general practice settings (1021790)
• Primary health care project on HIV and depression