Professor Marita McCabe is a highly regarded academic who conducts theoretical and applied research in the areas of body image disorders, aging, depression, sexual health and the mental health and wellbeing of Indigenous people across the lifespan. She has published more than 400 refereed articles in these areas.

Professor Marita McCabe is the Team Leader of the Health and Ageing Research Group at Swinburne University of Technology. She has conducted a range of research studies to address depression and behavioural problems associated with dementia among older people. Her research team and postgraduate students have investigated the prevalence of depression among older people in both residential and community care and have developed and evaluated a staff training program to assist them to detect depression among older people. These projects have been supported by research grants from beyondblue and Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council.

Professor McCabe has also led a research team of staff and postgraduate students to implement and evaluate a staff training program to assist them to better manage behavioural problems associated with dementia. This program both reduced the behavioural problems, as well as staff burnout. These projects have been supported by funding from NHMRC, ARC, Alzheimer’s Australia and beyondblue.

Most recently, professor McCabe has been conducting research to improve the physical and mental health of family carers of people with dementia in the community, as well as developing training programs for staff to promote resident choice and control (i.e. Consumer Directed Care) in residential aged care facilities.

In the last 10 years she has obtained more than $12 million in Category One research funding. She is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and a member of the Clinical, Health and Forensics Colleges of the APS.