Congratulations to Pavla Simerska Taylor on her Associate Fellowship with ANZAHPE.

Associate Professor Pavla Simerska Taylor is an academic leader in Health and Medical Education with extensive experience in assessment design, curriculum innovation, and educational scholarship. Currently, she is an Assessment and Evaluation Lead in the School of Medicine and Dentistry, Griffith University. Pavla studied Biochemistry and was awarded a PhD from the University of Chemistry and Technology for work at the Czech Academy of Sciences in 2006. Afterwards, she moved to the University of Queensland where she pursued a successful 12 year medicinal research career (over $33M of funding, over 60 publications) and completed a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education in 2012. She was an elected Vice-President of the CRS Australian Chapter. In 2018, she transitioned into medical education as she joined the Doctor of Medicine Program at the University of Queensland. Since then, she has led major assessment and evaluation initiatives, contributed to accreditation processes, supported large teams of educators, and delivered national professional development activities. Her work spans teaching, assessment and program development, and a sustained scholarship portfolio across multiple institutions. Her outstanding leadership in medical education has been recognised by several fellowships, grants and awards (e.g. UQ’s Research Teaching Awards 2011-2013; UQ Faculty of Medicine Excellence Award 2020; SFHEA Award 2023).

Pavla’s scholarly interests focus on assessment and feedback in medical education, particularly the development of evidence informed approaches to OSCEs, written assessments, peer learning, and mechanisms that enhance student engagement and performance. She leads and collaborates on numerous SoTL projects investigating assessment quality, feedback practices, students’ learning behaviours, and the implementation of digital assessment tools. Her work aims to translate research into practical improvements that strengthen curriculum design, assessment validity, and learner outcomes across medical programs.

“I decided to apply for the ANZAHPE Associate Fellowship because it represents a meaningful recognition of my sustained contributions to health and medical education and my commitment to advancing assessment, scholarship, and academic leadership. As an active member since 2019, I have contributed to ANZAHPE through conference presentations, committee work, abstract reviewing, and collaborative research, as well as FOHPE reviewer and I hope to deepen this engagement. The Fellowship will provide me with opportunities to continue serving the health professionals community through mentoring, reviewing publications, leading conference activities, and contributing to ANZAHPE strategic initiatives while supporting the ongoing growth of health professional education nationally and internationally.”