Research Team

Professor Fran Waugh

Chief Investigator

Following over 20 years professional experience as a registered nurse and then a social worker, Fran has worked for many years as an academic in the Social Work and Policy Studies programs in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work (SSESW), in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. She has held a number of leadership positions including: Program Convenor, Postgraduate Coursework Coordinator, Coordinator of the Doctor of Social Work, eLearning Academic Convenor, the Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning), acting Associate Dean (Academic Programs), Pro Dean and Acting Dean in the former Faculty of Education and Social Work and Head of School in SSESW. Fran is passionate about Field Education being core to the integration of students’ learning. Her research interests include higher education pedagogy to optimise students’ education experiences and knowledge building in social work practice to enhance evidence-based practice with vulnerable populations. She has disseminated her research findings at a number of international conferences and a wide range of publications. She regularly collaborates with international academics, to learn about Social Work education and practice in China, Taiwan and Indonesia.

Professor Robyn Ewing

Chief Investigator

Robyn Ewing AM is Professor of Teacher Education and the Arts. She teaches in the areas of curriculum, English and drama, language and early literacy development and works with both undergraduate and postgraduate pre-service and inservice teachers. Robyn is passionate about the Arts and education and the role quality arts experiences and processes can and should play in creative pedagogy and transforming the curriculum at all levels of education.

Her current research interests also include teacher education, especially the experiences of early-career teachers and the role of reflection in professional practice; mentoring; sustaining curriculum innovation; and evaluation, inquiry and case-based learning. She is particularly interested in innovative qualitative research methodologies including the role of the Arts in educational research.

Belinda Chambers

Project Manager

Belinda has extensive experience in the area of learning and teaching and social inclusion and has successfully managed large ALTC/OLT and other strategic learning and teaching and social inclusion projects in a number of professional faculties including Nursing, Business and Informatics, Health Sciences and currently Education and Social Work. In addition, she has been successful in obtaining internal e-learning grants, large quality improvement grants for learning and teaching and widening participation grants. She has worked with academic staff on major curriculum reviews, accreditations and other projects to enhance curriculum and the student experience. These projects have included: enhancing student understanding of Indigenous perspectives, internationalisation, research and interprofessional learning; the first year experience and transition; and Indigenous student outreach.

Dr Josephine Fleming

Senior Research Associate

Josephine’s current area of research combines comparative and arts education, following a long professional background as a practitioner, writer and teacher in the performing arts. She has worked on two large national ARC research projects focused on arts education, TheatreSpace: Accessing the Cultural Conversation with Professors Robyn Ewing & Michael Anderson and academics from the University of Melbourne and Griffith University and The Role of Arts Education in Academic Motivation, Engagement and Achievement, with Professors Andrew Martin & Michael Anderson and Associate Professor Robyn Gibson. Her recent research on reflective practice is a logical extension to this work.

She lectures in youth digital culture, actively engaging with developing technologies and literacies from a global perspective. She is focused on leveraging the diverse backgrounds of the University’s student population to explore and reflect on youth digital culture in ways that engage, excite and extend the knowledge of students and teachers.

Professor Wendy Bowles

Charles Sturt University

Wendy Bowles has been lecturing and researching in social work and human services at Charles Sturt University since 1991. Prior to commencing at CSU, Wendy worked mainly in the disability field and taught in social work at the University of New South Wales. Wendy’s PhD is in quality of life of people with spina bifida as an issue of equality. Wendy also convenes the Australian Association of Social Work’s National Education and Knowledge Development Committee.

A scholar of social work education and professional practice, Wendy enjoys teaching and researching in those areas that focus on social justice and human rights including rural issues, ethics and disability. Wendy has co-authored two books: one on social work ethics and one on social work research methods (now in its 3rd edition) as well as book chapters and journal articles. Supervising research students and being active within the university, professional and disability communities are Wendy’s priorities.

Professor Lisa Kervin

University of Wollongong

Prof Lisa Kervin is a researcher in Language and Literacy at the University of Wollongong, where she also leads research on Play, Curriculum and Pedagogy in Early Start Research. After completing her undergraduate studies and PhD at the University of Wollongong, she took up academic appointment in the (then) Faculty of Education at UOW in 2004.

Prof Kervin’s main research interests include: (1) children’s literacy practices, (2) how children use technology and understand Digital Literacies and (3) how teachers may be supported in using technology in classroom literacy experiences. She has researched her own teaching and has collaborative research partnerships with teachers and students in tertiary and primary classrooms and prior-to-school settings.

Dr Jessica Mantei

University of Wollongong

Jessica Mantei is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy for the School of Education in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, and a member of the Play, Curriculum and Pedagogy in Early Start Research Group. Jessica has extended experience as a primary school classroom teacher, early career teacher mentor, and Reading Recovery teacher. Her PhD focused on the development of teacher reflective capacities and the ways primary school teachers’ professional identities are evident in the learning experiences they design.

Jessica’s research interests include: pedagogies for literacy teaching supported by technology; the development of teacher reflective capacities and professional identity (Office of Learning and Teaching Grant ID16-5349); young children as consumers and creators of text as they explore and respond to the messages they are exposed to and those they might convey in their own compositions.

Professor Christine Morley

Queensland University of Technology

Christine Morley is Professor of Social Work, School of Public Health and Social Work at Queensland University of Technology. She is also discipline head of Social Work and Human Services.

Professor Morley’s work unites social work and critical theory to produce a vibrant, energetic engagement with social policy development and implementation. She is committed to social work practice, education, and research as a means for furthering a social justice agenda.

Formerly foundation Head of Social Work at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Professor Morley is internationally recognised as a leader in the development of critical approaches to social work, and in advancing critical reflection as both a pedagogical tool and methodological approach. More recently, Professor Morley’s work has focused the on impact of neoliberalism on social work and higher education with a particular interest in how critical pedagogy might equip practitioners to work in professional contexts characterised by rapid change, complexity and uncertainty.

Professor Morley has published more than 40 papers in national and international refereed journals, conference proceedings and in edited books as invited chapters. She is author of Practising Critical Reflection to Develop Emancipatory Change (Ashgate, 2014) , and co-author (with Selma Macfarlane and Phillip Ablett) of Engaging with Social Work: A Critical Introduction(Cambridge, 2014).

Associate Professor Joanne O'Mara

Deakin University

Dr. Joanne O’Mara is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Deakin University. Her research portfolio focuses on innovative pedagogical approaches and includes work on process drama, English, literacy and new technologies. Methodologically she works across a range of genres and is particularly interested in how new technological tools can be used in research.