Dr Kunstler is an early career Research Fellow at BehaviourWorks and a qualified physiotherapist. Before coming to BehaviourWorks, Dr Kunstler was working as a physiotherapist at a busy hospital and as a workshop facilitator in Human Biosciences at La Trobe University.

Dr Kunstler submitted her PhD thesis on physical activity promotion by physiotherapists in 2018 (Federation University Australia). She also holds Bachelor’s degrees in Biomedical Science from Deakin University and Health Science from La Trobe University, and a Master’s degree in Physiotherapy from La Trobe University.

Dr Kunstler’s previous research has focused on preventing chronic disease through promoting healthy behaviours, specifically physical activity. Dr Kunstler identified the techniques Australians physiotherapists use to promote physical activity to their patients during her PhD. She also identified the barriers and facilitators physiotherapists experience when attempting to promote physical activity.

Now Dr Kunstler identifies as a generalist researcher, you will find her researching almost anything behaviour related. Her most recent projects have involved publishing reviews on the efficacy of masks in preventing COVID-19 infection in healthcare workers and surveying the attitudes of Australian adults towards the use of psychedelic drugs to treat mental illness. Dr Kunstler completed a secondment with the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce in 2021, which was awarded the Dean's Awards for Excellence in Research - Enterprise (team) at the Monash University 2021 Dean's awards.

Research interests:

Dr Kunstler is passionate about supporting health professionals change patient behaviour. Specifically, she is passionate about finding the best ways to change physical activity behaviours in various populations and how systems influence those behaviours. The Australian Physiotherapy Association partly funded her PhD in the topic via a Tagged Grant.

Supervision interests:

I have extensive mentoring experience of honours and PhD students from many universities undertaking projects related to physical activity. I can be approached for co-supervision opportunities in this space.