Susan Crowther

Susan Crowther is a British–New Zealand academic midwife, and is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology, specialising in midwifery, birthing experiences and employing an hermeneutic phenomenology approach. She was previously a professor at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

Academic career

Crowther obtained a Bachelor of Science with honours from King's College London, followed by a Master of Science degree at the University of Surrey. Crowther has worked in healthcare since 1982, and moved into midwifery in the 1990s. Moving to New Zealand, Crowther worked as a rural midwife, and then completed a PhD titled Sacred joy at birth: a hermeneutic phenomenology study at the Auckland University of Technology in 2013. Her doctoral research was supervised by Elizabeth Smythe and Deborah Spence. Crowther then joined the faculty of the Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor. She is also a full professor at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, giving her inaugural professorial lecture in June 2018.

Crowther has published two books on the birthing process and is an editor for four peer-reviewed journals. She has participated in national working groups in the UK aimed at developing standards for midwifery education. Crowther is a member of the International Confederation of Midwives Research Standing Committee.

Crowther's research interests focus on childbirth, rural maternity services, sustainable practice, continuity of care, and include cultural and spiritual wellbeing and hermeneutic phenomenology.

Selected works