Narelle Dalwood is a lecturer, unit coordinator and PhD candidate in the physiotherapy department at Monash University. Narelle has a strong background in neurological physiotherapy and education and has combined her clinical and educator roles throughout her career. Narelle has previously held senior clinician positions at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Monash Health and has been an educator since 1998. Narelle’s key focus is how best to prepare physiotherapy students for clinical practice. Narelle has always taken a keen interest in how best to develop clinical competence in students whilst ensuring that the clinical educator is supported and the patient receives physiotherapy that is safe, effective, culturally responsive and underpinned by the best available evidence. To this end she has developed a unique, innovative, scalable peer simulation program for physiotherapy students at Monash University, where students are supported and trained to act as simulated patients for each other during teaching of pre-clinical skills. This program provides rich learning opportunities for students as they prepare to transition to the reality of clinical work. This interest in simulation and curriculum development has led Narelle to commence her PhD titled: ‘Students as patients: Peer simulation for developing clinical competency in physiotherapy students’. Narelle has recently had a systemic review and a podcast published in the esteemed journal, Medical Education. She currently has a randomised controlled trial underway investigating the efficacy of different approaches for training students to be simulated patients for each other. In 2018, Narelle was awarded a Vice Chancellor's citation for outstanding contribution to student learning acknowledging her work in the peer simulation program.