Josephine trained as a general nurse in Cork University Hospital and attained her MSc in Nurse Education and PhD in Physiology in University College Cork. She has worked as a general nurse in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, the Middlesex Hospital, London, and Cork University Hospital. Thereafter she worked as a nurse tutor within the Nurse Education Centre, Bon Secours Hospital, Cork and laterally as a lecturer and researcher at UCC’s Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery. She currently holds the post of Professor of Nursing and Head of School of Nursing and Midwifery.
She leads the cancer research strand within the School of Nursing and Midwifery, which aims to explore the health and life experiences of individuals, their families and carers during the cancer trajectory, and identify means of optimising the survivorship experience. She is co-Principal Investigator with Prof Roisin Connolly on the LYSA study, which aims to improve quality of life for women following treatment for breast and gynaecological cancers.