Rate My Professor Rebecca Waters

Dr. Rebecca Waters serves as Senior Teaching and Research Academic and Discipline Lead for Occupational Therapy in the Curtin School of Allied Health within the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy and a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy, both from Curtin University, and possesses over 30 years of experience as an occupational therapy practitioner. Her research specializations encompass person-centred concepts in human services, social inclusion for people with intellectual disability, family and domestic violence—particularly against women with disability—empathy in social work and therapeutic contexts, compassion fatigue among helping professionals, spirituality in occupational therapy practice with children, and experiences under the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Waters' doctoral dissertation, titled "Person-Centredness In Human Services: An Evidence-Based Conceptualisation To Inform Practice," was completed in 2019 at Curtin University.

Key publications include her highly cited paper, "“We feel left out”: Experiences of social inclusion from the perspective of young adults with intellectual disability" (Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 2019, 210 citations), "The experience of social inclusion for people with intellectual disability within community recreational programs: A systematic review" (Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 2018, 138 citations), and "An exploration of person-centred concepts in human services: a thematic analysis of the literature" (Health Policy, 2017, 92 citations). More recent contributions feature "Exploring categories of family violence across the lifespan: A scoping review" (Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 2024), "How do employees in the disability and family and domestic violence sectors respond to disclosures of violence from women with disability?" (Violence Against Women, 2025), and "Exploring the challenges of empathy in a therapeutic context: An interpretative phenomenological analysis" (Qualitative Health Research, 2025). She served as an elected representative on Curtin University's Academic Board from 2022 to 2024. Her work has garnered 388 citations across 15 publications, demonstrating growing impact in disability studies, social policy, and allied health.