PROFESSOR Isabelle Ellis is looking forward to the challenges of her new role as professor of rural and regional nursing at the La Trobe Rural Health School.Professor Ellis was appointed by the La Trobe University board and will also head the school of nursing and midwifery.Professor Ellis was the mastermind behind a virtual online hospital course called v-Hospital, which enables nursing students studying externally to access real-life nursing in rural and remote areas.Her program was heralded a world first after it was launched at the Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory in 2007.After leaving the NT, she took up a role at the University of Western Australia, where she continued to develop her passion for helping disadvantaged communities in rural and remote areas.Professor Ellis said she was looking forward to contributing to Victorian rural and remote communities through the La Trobe Rural Health School.‘‘My aim is to encourage people from rural and remote areas into careers in health by making the courses relevant to them and putting fun into the course with the use of technology,’’ she said.Professor Ellis is investigating virtual worlds in which students may use avatars, or computer alter egos, to experience the hospital system as a person who has a disability or as an older person.Professor Ellis joins Professor Teresa Iacono as the second professorial appointed to La Trobe University.