Tanya Bretherton has a Ph D in sociology with special interests in narrative life history and social history. She has published in the academic and public sphere for twenty years, and worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney for fifteen years.

Dr Bretherton's specialty is converting detailed research into thought-provoking works which are accessible to a general readership. Her book Safety in Numbers, on nursing in modern hospitals, was published by Cornell University Press. The book was well received by the general public and the research community and became a non-fiction best seller on Amazon.

She has also worked as a columnist, and had an ongoing partnership with national workplace magazine The Intelligence Report for over a decade. Currently she works as a freelance researcher and writer. Throughout 2016 she conducted a series of qualitative studies with families to compile a compendium of stories about life below the poverty line in Australia.

Her clients include Mission Australia, The Smith Family and Adopt Change. Her publication 'Journeys to Permanency' has just been launched by the NSW government and tells real stories of foster children and adoption in modern Australia.