Terryann Clark
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Clark in 2023
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Terryann Coralie Clark
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| Awards | Research Impact Award 2022 |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Auckland, University of Minnesota |
| Thesis | Factors associated with reduced depression and suicide risk among Māori high school student in New Zealand. (2007) |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | University of Auckland |
Terryann Coralie Clark, known as TC, is a New Zealand Māori nursing academic, and as of 2023 is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in Māori health, adolescent wellbeing and mental and sexual health.
Clark grew up in Moerewa.[1] Her mother was a child of a closed adoption, and so Clark is only recently discovering her whakapapa. Her mother's adopted whānau are Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu.[1] Clark was educated at Otiria Primary School and Bay of Islands College. She originally wanted to be an artist, although a school guidance counsellor suggested hairdressing. Clark didn't know anyone who had been to university. Her art teacher took her to the university in Auckland during a school trip, where she "thought the students didn't look that smart."[2][1] Having passed Bursary, she applied for teaching, nursing, and art courses, and at her mother's suggestion, she pursued nursing at Manukau Institute of Technology. She worked as a Māori community health worker in Glen Innes and then at Auckland Sexual Health Services.[1]
Clark completed a Master's in Public Health at the University of Auckland in 2002, with a thesis on sexual health in young Māori people.[3] After making contacts during a conference in Los Angeles, she completed a PhD titled Factors associated with reduced depression and suicide risk among Māori high school student in New Zealand at the University of Minnesota.[1][4] In 2008, she joined the faculty of the school of nursing at the University of Auckland as a senior lecturer.[5] She was appointed to the Cure Kids professorial chair in Child and Adolescent Mental Health in July 2022.[1][6]
Her research focuses on sexual and mental health, Māori health, and especially adolescent health.[7] She is a founding member of the Adolescent Health Research Group, and has been part of collecting data on a long-term study of adolescents in 2001, 2007, 2012, and 2019.[2][8] Clark is on the advisory panel for the 'A Better Start' National Science Challenge.[9]
Clark has a prosthetic leg after being hit by a car in Minnesota.[2] She credits taking up dog-sledding with helping with her recovery.[1]
Clark and her team of won a University of Auckland Research Impact award in 2022, for their work "surveying the health and well-being of more than 36,000 teenagers [which] has provided a rich source of policy change for the better".[1][10]
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