Our People
Director
![]() | Associate Professor Katharine McKinnonKatharine is a human geographer whose work engages with community economies, gender, development and care. She works with a broad range of communities in Australia and the Asia-Pacific, engaging in qualitative and participatory social research for community learning and development. Her current research considers questions of: how to achieve gender equity in ways that suit the lives and livelihoods of people in their different places and communities; how to reshape enterprises and organisations around priorities of care and inclusivity; and how to put an ethics of care for people and environment at the heart of economies and livelihoods. |
Associate Director
![]() | Professor Barbara Pamphilon AMBarbara is an expert leading qualitative researcher highly experienced in developing collaborative methods for stakeholder consultation and employing these methods with a wide range consumers, government and non-government organisations in both Australia and in developing countries. |
Research Staff
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Dr Jo CafferyAssociate Professor with over twenty years experience as a linguist and working with Indigenous adults on developing linguistic and cultural programmes across remote Australia. |
Post Doctoral Fellows
| Dr Jenny DeanJenny is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Rural Education and Communities research group. Her current research interests include inequality in education, the sociology of Indigenous schooling, the social demographics of schooling and school curricula, drivers of university enrolment, and student engagement. She draws on spatial theories of equity and marginalisation in communities and predominantly quantitative methodologies to explore these interrelated issues. She has published works in the areas of curriculum access and achievement, Indigenous student access to the curriculum, and rural schools and communities. Before completing her doctorate she worked extensively in areas of government research and analysis. |
![]() | Dr Justin SeeJustin’s research centres around issues of justice, vulnerability, climate adaptation, and postdevelopment particularly in urban and coastal communities in the Philippines. He has recently finished his PhD in Community Planning and Development at La Trobe University, while he received his BSc (Physics, Social Sciences) and MA (Sociology) from the Ateneo de Manila University. His recent research articulates diverse pathways for climate adaptation that builds on the community’s assets, resources, and strengths. He has published his work in climate change journals such as Global Environmental Change and Journal of Flood Risk and Management, and is the recipient of the 2020 International Student of the Year (Regional Category and the Premier’s Award) at the Victorian International Education Awards. |
Research Assistants
Monty Nixon
Monty grew on Arrente Country in Central Australia where the desert landscape sparked an interest about the story of how humans fit and connect as part of the world. This interest became a passion whilst developing a background in Outdoor Education as an undergraduate student at La Trobe University. Monty’s Honours thesis continued to ask questions of more-than-human relations, exploring Rock Climbing at Dyurrite Mount Arapiles. Monty is interested in studying how different ways of being, knowing and doing inform understanding of place(s), and the narrative Australians can create together to disempower hegemonic Colonial perspectives of Nature.
Monty joined the CSC as a research assistant on the Country as Teacher Project. Since joining the Centre, Monty has also joined Dr. Jo Caffrey on the Youth as Change Project in Papua New Guinea.
Kerry Woodward
Kerry Woodward’s research interests include food, postgrowth identities, diverse economies, political ecology and more-than-human assemblages. Currently, Kerry is exploring how care is practised in vegetable places and what this means for the health and wellbeing of people and planet. Kerry is a PhD student in the Centre for sustainable Communities.
Natalie Downes
Natalie Downes is a research assistant in the Rural Education & Communities Research Group and is currently undertaking her PhD in the area of rural studies and rural education. Her research interests include school aged distance education, rural-regional sustainability, and the ethical working impact of research with rural people and communities. Natalie brings a wide range of experience to the team having worked on projects funded by the government, ARC, and not-for-profit organisations. She has worked on projects with university outreach teams, schools, community organisations and is an editor of the Australian and International Journal of Rural Education. Natalie also works as a research administrator with the Centre for Sustainable Communities at the university of Canberra.
Ada Goldsmith
Ada Goldsmith is a research assistant in the Rural Education & Communities Research Group who is currently undertaking her PhD studies. Her research focuses on equitable access to curriculum and educational outcomes for Australian students with a particular focus on the Australian Capital Territory. Prior to commencing her studies she worked as a high school teacher in the ACT.
Adjuncts and Affiliates
![]() | Dr Misty Adoniou |
![]() | Professor Mark Brennan |
| Dr Tony Brown |
![]() | Barbara Chambers |
Professor Caroline Lemerle | |
Associate Professor Katja Mikhailovich | |
![]() | Dr Shirley Randell AO |
Dr John Spriggs | |
![]() | Professor Daniela StehlikDaniela tweets as @RubaSkala and can be contacted on danielastehlik@icloud.com. |
Dr Karen Williams |