Painaustralia's Newest Pain Champion - Hayley Leake

In September, Painaustralia welcomed our newest Pain Champion, Australian Survivor sole winner, Hayley Leake.

Hayley is a physiotherapist and pain researcher. After working clinically for six years, she embarked on a PhD at the University of South Australia with Professor Lorimer Moseley’s research group. Her research aims to optimise pain education for adolescents and adults living with chronic pain.

In 2021, Hayley competed in Australian Survivor: Brain vs Brawn. She outlasted 23 castaways over 48 days in the Australian Outback to take home the title of Sole Survivor.

Hayley is currently based at Neuroscience Research Australia trialling treatments for chronic low back pain, and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome; as well as working with the researchers at the Body in Mind research group the University of South Australia.

Hayley’s goal as our newest Pain Champion is ‘to help address issues of discrimination, misunderstanding and stigmatisation in the community and to reduce the sometimes-severe impact on those living with pain, their families and carers’.

You can read Hayley’s blog here