Rate My Professor Penny Buykx

Associate Professor Penny Buykx is a behavioural and social scientist in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, where she joined in 2019. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy from Curtin University and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology from Swinburne University of Technology. Earlier in her career, she served as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield's School of Health and Related Research from 2014 to 2018, focusing on alcohol treatment services commissioning, minimum unit pricing policy impacts, and public awareness of alcohol-cancer links. Previously, from 2008 to 2014, she was a Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at Monash University School of Rural Health, investigating rural health service access. Her prior roles included work at Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre on alcohol use, overdose, and diversion from criminal justice, and at the National Drug Research Institute on cannabis regulation. She began her professional journey as a Juvenile Justice Case Manager dealing with drug and alcohol issues.

Buykx's research specializations encompass alcohol and other substance use policy, access to treatment systems, hard-to-reach populations, rural health, and public health policy. She has attracted over $9 million in research funding and published approximately 100 peer-reviewed articles. Key publications include co-editing the Handbook of Research Methods in Social Work (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025), contributing to The IARC Perspective on Alcohol Reduction or Cessation and Cancer Risk in the New England Journal of Medicine (2023), and authoring Public support for alcohol policies associated with knowledge of cancer risk in the International Journal of Drug Policy (2015, 131 citations). Highly cited works also feature Systematic review of effective retention incentives for health workers in rural and remote areas (Australian Journal of Rural Health, 2010, 517 citations) and Managing the deteriorating patient in a simulated environment (Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2010, 253 citations). At Newcastle, she coordinates and teaches courses like SOCS3100 Policy Development, Program Management and Evaluation, and SWRK4500 Social Work Research. Buykx regularly reviews for journals, mentors early career researchers, and contributes to policy through evaluations of alcohol pricing policies in Scotland and Australia's Northern Territory.