Professor Forsyth graduated as an occupational therapist with distinction from Queen Margaret University College. She worked clinically in a range of health and social care settings early in her career.

She then completed an advanced masters degree in Occupational Therapy and a PhD in Public Health Sciences both at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She received the Torrance Award and the Phi Kappa Phi Award for research excellence. During this time she was an adjunct Professor in the graduate program and lead the international Model of Human Occupation research program. Professor Forsyth was awarded the prestigious Post Doctoral Fellowship with the American Occupational Therapy Foundation and has recently been admitted into Marquis Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare.

Professor Forsyth has written five books (which have been translated into 13 languages) and has productive research relationships with 85 international/national collaborators which have produced over a hundred co-authored publications. International collaborators are based in Chicago, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Atlanta, Sweden, Chile, Finland, Taiwan, Texas, Japan, Portugal & Canada.

In recent years at Queen Margaret University, Professor Forsyth has secured five million pounds which funds a research group called Firefly Research. Firefly Research consists of five academic/practice partnership teams to advance the translational body of knowledge. These teams cover a range of practice contexts including child and family; physical disability and mental health. One of these programs involves over 800 practitioners moving from “custom and practice” to “evidence based practice” through a facilitated change program.

Due to practice demand, the findings of this community of researchers is now being developed into QMU courses to facilitate dissemination.