Who we are

It’s been a long process but that’s what my Flinders course taught me – the ins and outs of publishing. They let us know the reality of being a writer,  and found a balance between the creative and the practical. They encouraged us to develop our literary skills while giving us a real advantage in  having insider’s knowledge of the publishing industry.”

My study at Flinders University has sharpened my knowledge and skills on the theory of development and its disciplines, policies, and programs. My research thesis is focused on ‘Aid effectiveness and corruption in developing countries’. This work is enabling me to explore these issues in both theory and practice and discover why the development problems I encountered in the past occurred and how they should be addressed.

As a social scientist, I’m particularly interested in how people influence environmental management. I’m investigating how both formal (governance) and informal (cultural and social) processes affect decision making processes and outcomes for the environment. My research includes topics such as community participation, capacity building, the policy implications of sea level rise, and the social dimensions of natural resource management.

I teach Renaissance and Eighteenth Century literature and have a special interest in political satire, parody, and humour. My research focuses on political satire in Eighteenth Century literature and current Australian political cartoons; and the value of culture in the Laboratory Adelaide Project. I am also the foundation Director of the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres and have been Chair of the Adelaide Festival of Ideas, where I remain a board member. I am the sole Australasian representative on the board of the international Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes.

I teach broadly in the field of development studies. My teaching aims to help students develop an understanding of the continuities, changes and debates in international development thinking, policies and practices. I am particularly interested in how global development policies translate into local contexts – for example, how gender mainstreaming or poverty reduction is interpreted, implemented or experienced at the national and local levels.  I am also involved in teaching collaborations to enable students across universities and countries to apply their academic knowledge in realistic policy scenarios.  My two main research fields are critical development studies (development volunteering, culture and social change, gender and development, poverty reduction) and social and cultural geographies of migration, ethnicity and race.

The Bachelor of Languages at Flinders allows me to study both French and Italian. I wanted to go to a university that allowed me to study two languages as part of one single degree and such a degree is only offered at Flinders. I’m also doing some study in international business which will help open up opportunities for me around the world.

My interests include the role of voluntary organisations and patriotic funds in times of peace and war, the history of volunteering and voluntary action, and gender and imperialism. My recent projects focus on soldier settlement schemes post WWI, Meals on Wheels, the Red Cross movement and sustaining volunteering in Australia.

As an undergraduate I studied literature, film and drama and have been working in those areas ever since. I wrote my PhD on American authors Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon, and have an ongoing fascination with contemporary and postmodern literature. Teaching in the disciplines of English and Creative Arts, I have been responsible for core topics in the Bachelor of Creative Arts, and I frequently deliver lectures on screen adaptations of literature. I am also a weekly film reviewer for the ABC, and have written on both literature and the cinema for numerous publications in Australia and overseas.

I have always been fascinated by the idea of understanding the viewpoints of people who hold very different beliefs to my own and studying history at Flinders has allowed me to explore this idea. My PhD research is focusing on the history of the anti-vaccination movement in Britain in the 19^th century. By moving the focus away from the metropolitan areas and the organised anti-vaccination societies that often dominate the historiography, I am working to restore the agency of the ordinary citizen who is often missing from the story of the anti-vaccination movement during this time period.