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Sally is an active member of the Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education (RIPPLE). Her auto-ethnographic PhD from the University of Technology, Sydney was on the Chancellor’s List 2010 and received a Faculty of Science Research Excellence Award at Charles Sturt University (CSU).

From February-June, 2012 Sally was released for the Special Studies Program, visiting the International Network for Scholarship in Professions Research (INSPiRE) at University of Western Ontario; Professional Practice, Education & Learning (ProPEL), an international network for research at University of Stirling, Scotland, members of Forbundet Sveriges Arbetsterapeuter (Swedish OT Association) and the College of Occupational Therapists in London.

Sally teaches occupational therapy students in the School of Community Health on Albury-Wodonga Campus.  She joined CSU in 1995 to help start the first occupational therapy course in inland Australia and formerly worked in youth-specific occupational therapy, health service innovation, acute psychiatry, childbirth education, curative education and occupational therapy education.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• OCC205 Occupational Engagement, Creativity & Group Work
• Group Work Experience Program with second year occupational therapy    students
• OCC413 Occupational Therapy Practice in Context
• Annual Fourth Year Occupational Therapy Student Conference, now in its 16th year.

Research supervision

• HLT441 Occupational Therapy Honours
• HLT 515 Master of Health Science Portfolio
  

Research

• Completed PhD
  'Writing the ordinary: Auto-ethnographic tales of an occupational therapist'.
• Current Scholarship in Teaching Grant
  'A Study of Signature Pedagogies in Health and Business Courses' with Dr Cathi McMullen, Sarah Hyde, Wendy Rose Davison, Dr Megan Smith and Dr Jane McCormack.
• Research interests
  New professionalities and health reform
• Building new theoretical and methodological tools for researching practice, including writing embodied tales of practice and work on images in ethnography
• Professionalisation, gender and professional heritages

Publications

Selected recent publications

• Denshire, S., (in review). 'History matters. Towards a cultural history of the occupational therapy profession in Australia'. Feature article for Australian Occupational Therapy Journal
• Denshire, S., (forthcoming). 'Le moment de la lune'. An auto-ethnographic tale of practice about menarche in a children's hospital. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal 58: no. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1630.2011.00929.x
• Denshire, S. (forthcoming). Auto-ethnography on The Sock Knitter: Re-inscribing gender into the heritage of occupational therapy in Australia. Chapter in Creative spaces for qualitative researching: Living research. edited by J. Higgs, A. Titchen, D. Horsfall & D. Bridges, Sense: The Netherlands.
• Denshire, S. (forthcoming). Assembling Sofya's keepsake. A twice-told tale of a therapist's first experience of a death in hospital. In Auto-ethnography in health and social care ed. A. Kinsella, Sense: The Netherlands.
• Denshire, S., (2010). The art of 'writing in' the hospital under-life: auto-ethnographic reflections on subjugated knowledges in everyday practice. Reflective Practice 11 (4), 529-544.
• Harris, E., & Denshire, S., (2008). 'The meanings of craft to an occupational therapist'. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal 55 (2), 133-142. (second author omitted by mistake).
• Denshire, S.(2005). 'This is a hospital, not a circus' Reflecting on generative metaphor for a deeper understanding of professional practice. International Journal of Critical Psychology. Issue 13: Critical Professionals, 13, 158-178.
• Denshire, S.(2005). 'Integrating the firelight': Theorising an evolving practice of creativity-based group work for health and wellbeing. In Promoting health through creativity. ed. T. Schmid, Whurr: London (pp.148-166).

Professional Appointments & Memberships

Professional appointments

• Reviewer, Sociopedia.isa, an online database with 'state-of-the-art' review articles in social sciences (since 2010)
• Reviewer, Australian Journal of Occupational Therapy (ongoing)
• Reviewer, British Journal of Occupational Therapy (since 2011)
• Reviewer, Journal of Occupational Science (since 2001)

Memberships

• ANZAHPE - Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Education
• AARE - Australian Association for Educational Research
• Graduate Associate, Centre for Research in Learning and Change, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UTS.
• National Institute of Humanities
• Occupational Therapy Australia Ltd
• RIPPLE - Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning & Education, CSU.