Dr Emma Sheaves | 2025 recipient

Dr Emma Sheaves is a new AFRM Fellow who completed her rehabilitation medicine training in Sydney. She currently works in the Chronic Pain Service at Westmead Hospital and as a locum rehabilitation staff specialist at John Hunter Hospital. A former physiotherapist, she has a strong appreciation of the transformative impact of rehabilitation for people living with disability. Her clinical interests include neurorehabilitation, spasticity management, developmental disability, spinal cord and brain injury, orthopaedics, and amputee rehabilitation.

Emma has a strong interest in research and completed a retrospective cohort study analysing AROC data to examine trends in obesity in rehabilitation over time. Her research journey began as a physiotherapist, with publications on physiotherapy education and physical activity in a brain injury rehabilitation unit. She is a board member of the Rehabilitation Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand and has held trainee representative roles with the RACP and AFRM. Emma is passionate about disability advocacy, rural health equity, education, and physician wellbeing, and is grateful for the opportunity to continue her research through this award.