Cathrina Geldard

Biography

Cathrina holds a naturopathy degree and a Masters in biomedical science, a combination that lets her bridge traditional and conventional approaches to medicine. Her work is driven by a central question: how traditional and practice-based plant medicine knowledge can be tested, understood and applied through rigorous contemporary science. This interest has taken her from medicinal mushrooms to the herbal treatment of complex, recurrent infections and antimicrobial resistance. Underpinning this is a commitment to improving human health and expanding safe, effective, evidence-based options for people living with chronic conditions.

Research

Cathrina's research centres on herbal medicine and the connections between traditional evidence, contemporary practice and science, and on how traditional and practice-based knowledge can inform clinically relevant research. Her work includes the development of polymicrobial biofilm models for studying persistent and recurrent urinary tract infections, examining how antimicrobial and herbal approaches behave within complex, multi-species microbial communities rather than single-organism systems. She is interested in antimicrobial resistance, antibiofilm activity, medicinal mushrooms, and the ways traditional and ethnobotanical knowledge can be mapped and translated into practice-aligned, laboratory-based investigation. Her broader aim is to strengthen the evidence base underpinning safe, clinically grounded herbal medicine.

Teaching

Cathrina teaches botanical medicine at NCNM, supporting students to build the materia medica knowledge and clinical reasoning needed for herbal and naturopathic practice. She also teaches across postgraduate research units, guiding students through developing research proposals and planning, conducting and reporting their own research projects, building research literacy and critical appraisal skills.