Professor Chur-Hansen is a Registered Psychologist with an endorsement in Health Psychology. She holds a PhD in Medical Education, which was completed in the Discipline of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of Adelaide, where she was on staff from 1987 to 2013. Professor Chur-Hansen served as the Head of the School of Psychology from October 2013 to October 2019.
Her research interests are broadly around food and eating; sex and relationships; physical pain; death and dying; and companion animals and their impact on human health (psychological, social and physical). Much of her research is around a biopsychosociocultural framework, with a focus on qualitative methods (as well as quantitative and mixed methods).