Patricia Davidson to be next VC of the University of Wollongong

Johns Hopkins University nursing dean Patricia Davidson will return to Australia to lead the University of Wollongong.

Alumna Patricia Davidson will become vice-chancellor of the University of Wollongong next year.

The University of Wollongong will welcome back an alumna next year when Patricia Davidson, an Australian who is dean of the school of nursing at Johns Hopkins University in the US, takes over as vice-chancellor.

After doing part of her nursing training at Wollongong Hospital in the 1970s, Professor Davidson later completed her bachelor of arts and master of education at the University of Wollongong.

But for most of her career she was a nurse clinician, only completing her PhD — on care for patients with chronic heart failure — in 2003 at the University of Newcastle.

Before she left in 2013 for Johns Hopkins — a leading health sciences university in Baltimore in the US — she was professor of cardiovascular and chronic care at UTS.

Professor Davidson said she believed that Australian universities would be able to come back strongly after COVID-19.

“The quality of Australian education is still very attractive (overseas). Once borders open up Australia will be seen again as a safe and welcoming environment,” she said.

Professor Davidson will begin her new role in May, after the retirement of current vice-chancellor Paul Wellings. She said she would take a cut to her salary in recognition of the financial stress the university is under due to COVID-19.