Patsy is an Accredited Statistician whose work is concentrated in schizophrenia epidemiology.

Her foundational training (B.App.Sci and BSc Hons) was in mathematics, mathematical and applied statistics, and programming.  Her broad skill base was applied in her early professional career across a wide range of subject areas from tourism surveys to agricultural research.  After an extended child-rearing break, she found her way to the Neuropsychiatric Epidemiological Research unit of UWA, and refreshed her skills with a Master of Biostatistics through the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia. 

She now uses all her statistics, programming, mathematics and database ability, in consultation with schizophrenia epidemiologists, to identify,  execute , and explain optimum statistical analyses to help untangle some of the complex questions around the disease.   She has a strong focus on risk factor epidemiology and scale development and validation.  Patsy  coded a complex conversion of the sophisticated, clinically derived McNeil-Sjöström Scale for obstetric complications for application to WA linked register data.   From the same range of register data, she has developed and validated the data-driven Early Adversity Scale for Schizophrenia (EAS-Sz).  This scale objectively quantifies early childhood adversity as a risk for adult schizophrenia and will be useful to researchers trying to disentangle the often co-occurring risks for schizophrenia of environment and genetics.