Sunny Collings
Catherine Diane Collings, known as Sunny, is a New Zealand psychiatrist and health executive, and was a full professor at the University of Otago, specialising in suicide prevention. She was chief executive of the Health Research Council of New Zealand, before being appointed in 2025 to lead the Health Quality and Safety Commission.
Academic career
Collings completed a medical degree at the University of Otago, graduating in 1984. She worked as a general practitioner and completed psychiatric training at the Maudsley Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital in London, where she studied bulimia nervosa with Professor Michael King. Collings also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health and a PhD, both from Otago. Collings joined the faculty of the University of Otago as a senior lecturer in 1991, rising to full professor in 2011. She has also supervised doctoral students in the School of Health at Victoria University of Wellington and at the University of Auckland. One of her notable doctoral students is Felicity Goodyear-Smith. Collings is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.Collings's research focuses on mental health, self-harm and suicide prevention, although she has also published on other topics such as ethics and food security. She is a board member of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. Collings was an expert adviser on an inquest into the deaths of four teenage girls in Flaxmere.
Collings was Dean and Head of Campus at the University of Otago, Wellington for nine years. In 2019 she was appointed as the chief executive of the Health Research Council. In July 2025 she was appointed CEO of Te Tāhū Hauora Health Quality & Safety Commission.