Dr Esther Smits

Esther Smits is a Human Movement Scientist with over 10 years of experience in clinical and health research. Her research has been focused on motor control, physical activity, and health outcomes in several clinical populations, including Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, low back pain, and injury following road traffic crashes. She has expertise in ambulatory monitoring methods (e.g., wearable technology) and quantitative data analysis and is interested in research focused on improving health outcomes and healthcare services.

Esther Smits completed a BSc and MSc degree in Human Movement Sciences at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She completed her PhD at the department of Neurology at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, which was focused on diagnosing and monitoring Parkinson’s disease using a medical device (i.e., a sensor-pen and tablet). She came to Australia in 2015 to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland (at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and at the RECOVER Injury Research Centre).

Currently, Esther Smits is working as a medical writer at a global contract research organization where she supports medical device product development. As a medical writer, she compiles, organizes, writes, edits, and produces documentation for clinical trial study design, market approval of devices (e.g., clinical evaluation report), and study results reporting (e.g., manuscripts).