SCU Staff Directory
Dr Alana Gall
PhD (CDU)
Current Appointment: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Organisational Unit: National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine
Email: alana.gall@scu.edu.au
Location: Lismore Campus
Campus: Lismore
Personal Website
Alana is a Pakana (Tasmanian Aboriginal) woman from the north-east coast of lutruwita (Tasmania), and more recently, the Bass Strait Islands of Cape Barren and Flinders Island. Alana is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the National Cnetre for Naturopathic Medicine. She is developing a research program that will centre around First Nations Australians traditional medicines and healing practices, aiming to protect and preserve these medicines for future generations, and improve accessibility for all First Nations communities across Australia. Alana is passionate about Indigenous peoples' holistic health and wellbeing, globally. She believes that the wellbeing and identity of Indigenous peoples are strongly centred around strong connections to Country/land, culture, spirituality and each other.
She has over eleven years’ experience in research, research translation, community engagement, health education and clinical consultation. She has a background in Nutritional Medicine and completed a Master by Research with a focus on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine use by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cancer patients and, more specifically, the disclosure of this use to their cancer healthcare professionals, and completed her PhD titled “Exploring Wellbeing from Indigenous Perspectives”. Her work focussed primarily on wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but also included a focus on the domains of wellbeing for Indigenous peoples in Canada, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the United States. Alana's work is grounded in decolonising research approaches, including Indigenist research methods with a strengths-based focus.
Alana has strong experience in qualitative methodologies, data analysis and syntheses. She has extensive experience with Indigenist and decolonising methodologies, with a focus on strengths-based approaches that privilege the voices of First Nations peoples. She pioneered the use of individual yarns with a think-aloud component, called ‘think-aloud yarns’, that explored the suitability and acceptability of the think-aloud method with First Nations peoples (under peer review), and provided the face and content validity of draft statements for a wellbeing measure under development. She has experience with Traditional Indigenous medicine, both academically and within the education space, and this is the focus of her current research fellowship. Alana has an extensive and broad knowledge in First Nations health, wellbeing, Traditional Indigenous medicines and foods, qualitative, Indigenist and decolonising methodologies and methods.