About me

Here is my biodata

I am come to work in the field of academic development with the following academic qualifications:

a BA in Social Science – with distinction;

an MA in Sociology;

a Grad Dip Adult Ed (Techn.) – with distinction, and;

a PhD in higher education

I currently work at the University of New England in Armidale Australia as a senior lecturer in higher education. In my own time I am also manager and senior education consultant of Empowered Learning International which specializes in capacity building educational consultancy services to organisations and communities in developing countries on a not-for-profit basis. Our focus is on developing a fair and just global ‘knowledge commons’. As the result of a series of academic development workshops for Indian engineering colleges I now am also on the Board of Management of the Rajarambapu Institute of Technology Sakharale as an honorary academic adviser.

I am passionate about providing all students, and especially those from marginalised social groups with exciting learning experiences and successfull academic outcomes. This commitment emerges out of my deeply held beliefs about the empowering potential of education, my belief in social justice, and my own experiences as a mature age, first generation, university student from a non-English speaking migrant background.

My working career began as a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer with QANTAS prior to moving into the social welfare field. Having studied sociology, political science, and social welfare, I then branched out into teaching in the higher education sector and subsequently took up a number of academic posts. My most recent appointments are as an academic developer and include Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at Monash University which entailed working in South Africa and Malaysia, and Senior Lecturer/Senior Consultant at the NSW Police College. I have also taught at The University of Canberra, The University of Western Sydney and Charles Sturt University.

Over the years I have engaged in educational consultancies, research projects, and the project management of academic development and organisational change initiatives in Australia as well as in South Africa, Malaysia and more recently, India. I have developed a sound reputation for an outstanding ability to inspire student learning in the social sciences and in the field of academic scholarship in further and higher education across the disciplines. My interest in the scholarship of learning and teaching in higher education within a social justice framework culminated in my PhD thesis ‘Online Learning as Curricular Justice? A Critical Framework for Higher Education.

I have worked, researched and published in the areas of internationalization, academic development, student transition, curriculum practice, social learning theory, problem-based learning, action-research and online-learning. My current research interests lie in developing – from a social constructionist perspective – new paradigm (post-colonial) curriculum, teaching, and assessment practices in transcultural higher education, and the application of Web 2.0 social technologies especially in the integration of assessment and learning. My expertise in the field of critical practice in higher education has led to a recent invitation by Professor Joe Kincheloe of McGill University Montreal to write a book on the socio-politics of higher education in the new global knowledge economy.