On Empathy
In Conversation with Distinguished Professor Tracy Levett- Jones

• Hosted by Dr Nadine Levy
• August 19 2026
• 12.30pm-1.30pm
• Event will be held on zoom

What does it mean to take empathy seriously, not just in healthcare, but as a public necessity?

In this session Distinguished Professor Tracy Levett-Jones, a globally recognised researcher and leader of the UTS Empathy Initiative, draws on her extensive body of work to explore empathy as a social, ethical, and cultural capacity. Through the Empathy Initiative, her research advances evidence-based approaches to cultivating empathy in education, professional practice, and climate change.

Moving beyond individual notions, she considers how empathy shapes the way we live together: informing care, deepening understanding, and responding to the urgent challenges of our time.

Bringing together research, professional insight, and personal reflection, this session invites us to see empathy not as an add-on, or a soft-skill, but as a necessity - one that urgently needs to be cultivated and enacted in our relationships, communities, and institutions to ensure a sustainable future.

About the Presenter:

Distinguished Professor Tracy Levett-Jones

RN, PhD, M Ed & Work, BN

Tracy Levett-Jones holds the position of Distinguished Professor in the School of Nursing & Midwifery at The University of Technology Sydney. Tracy established and leads the UTS Empathy Initiative research group and the UTS Research Inspired Pedagogy Practice and Educational Design (RIPPED) group.

Tracy is recognised as a world-leading nursing and healthcare researcher. She was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in 2022 and is ranked as one of the World’s Top 1% of Scientists in the discipline of Nursing according to Stanford University.

Tracy’s research interests include: empathy, climate change and sustainability, patient safety, belongingness and clinical reasoning. Tracy has a strong track record of publications including authorship/editorship of 10 books, the most recent being ‘Clinical Reasoning: Learning to think like a nurse’ and ‘Critical Conversations for Patient Safety’, 58 book chapters and over 200 peer-reviewed articles in nursing, social science, allied health and medical journals. Tracy has been awarded over 7 million dollars in grant funding including a number of Category 1 grants. She has also been the recipient of 17 research awards and 15 teaching awards.

Tickets are free, but registration is essential.