Peter Hudson (RN, PhD) is Director of the Centre www.centreforpallcare.org for Palliative Care an academic department based at St Vincent’s Hospital and a Collaborative Centre of the University of Melbourne, Australia (2005- current).  He is a professor (honorary) at The University of Melbourne and professor (honorary) at Vrije University, Brussels (Belgium).  Peter is a registered nurse with approximately 30 years’ experience in palliative care research, education and clinical practice.  Peter’s research program incorporates palliative care health services evaluation, psychosocial support and symptom management.  He has led several multi-site randomised controlled trials and has expertise in a variety of research methods.  His particular interest is developing and evaluating strategies to improve the psychosocial support for patients and families affected by serious illness.       

He has been awarded several National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) palliative care grants as principal investigator.  He is also a co-investigator on National Institutes of Health (USA) clinical trial testing interventions for Parkinson’s disease and dementia.  He has published over 100 peer reviewed journal articles that focus specifically on palliative and end of life care and is co editor of Family Carers in Palliative Care’ (Oxford University Press).  He is a recipient of the Premier's Award for translating evidence into practice, and a Fulbright scholar (USA).   He is a director on the board of the International Neuropalliative care society and was past vice president of Palliative Care Australia and past director on the board of the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care.