Cristina is skilled in a wide range of evaluative practices and has developed national monitoring and evaluation frameworks for initiatives such as, the Health Workforce Australia Expanding Scopes of Practice Program and the National Workplace Initiative on behalf of the National Mental Health Commission. Cristina has undertaken evaluations of complex health programs in diverse fields including primary care, aged care, dementia, mental health and health workforce redesign. For example, Cristina led the evaluation of the Improving Social Connectedness of Older Australians pilot project (Australian Government Department of Health) which explored community-based and general practice based interventions to improve social connections. Cristina was part of the team from the Centre for Health Service Development that received the Australian Evaluation Society 2022 Award for Enhancing the Social Good, for the evaluation of the Pathways to Community Living Initiative, a five-year evaluation of an innovative initiative that supported the deinstitutionalisation process for people with severe and persistent mental illness. This evaluation required a high level of engagement with the family and carers of people with mental illness. She is experienced in conducting environmental scans and literature reviews for organisations such as the Ambulance Service of NSW, the NSW Ombudsman, the Cancer Institute NSW, the NSW Ministry of Health and the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. Cristina led the team that produced four literature reviews to support the Australian Government’s Independent Review of Nursing Education, Educating the Nurse of the Future. The outputs of these projects contributed to evidence-informed policy decisions as demonstrated by their publication on Australian Government web-sites and the tabling of the gap analysis completed for the Office of the NSW Ombudsman in the NSW Legislative Assembly.

Cristina has strong project management capabilities and has effectively led interdisciplinary research and evaluation teams and coordinated national and international expert panels in diverse health fields. She has a strong interest in how loneliness and social isolation affects older people and the contribution of social support and primary care interventions to improved health outcomes for older Australians. Cristina is a member of the Australian Evaluation Society, Australian Association of Gerontology, and the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand. She is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.