Emeritus Professor Mel Ainscow
Mel Ainscow is Emeritus Professor of Education at University of Manchester and Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology. A long-term consultant to UNESCO, he is currently working on international efforts to promote equity and inclusion globally. His most recent books are: ‘Struggles for equity in education: the selected works of Mel Ainscow’ (Routledge World Library of Educationalists series), ‘Inside the autonomous school: making sense of a global educational trend’ (with Maija Salokangas), and ‘Promoting equity in schools: collaboration, inquiry and ethical leadership’ (with Dr Jess Harris and Professor Suzanne Carrington), all published by Routledge. In the Queen’s 2012 New Year Honours list, he was made a CBE for services to education.
Associate Professor Scott Avery
Scott Avery is descendant from the Worimi people and is the Research and Policy Director at the First Peoples Disability Network (Australia), a non-Government Organisation constituted by and for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples with disability. He is undertaking a PhD at the University of Technology Sydney on social inclusion and disability in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and has recently published the book ;‘Culture is Inclusion: A narrative of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability’ based on this research. He is on the Research Advisory Committee at the Lowitja Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research, and has been appointed to a number of experts advisory committees at the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Dr Kylie Boltin
Kylie Boltin is an Australian-American filmmaker and writer. She holds a PhD in Media and Communications (Creative Media: Film and TV) with a specialisation in the production of documentary film and a Master of Arts (Creative writing). In her PhD, Kylie proposed a model of governance as a production protocol for collaboration with multicultural and diverse communities. Since 2013, Kylie has been a key creative contributor to many of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)’s flagship online and interactive storytelling programs. For this work, Kylie has won a Walkley Award and NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Screenwriting, amongst many other acknowledgements. Kylie is the 2021 Fryer Library’s Creative Writing Fellow, has served on the NITV (National Indigenous Television) commissioning team and now commissions interactive documentaries for SBS OnDemand.
Dr Jason Chow
Jason Chow is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland. His work focuses on language, social, and behavioral development, peer networks, supporting teachers and speech-language pathologists/therapists, implementation and sustainability of early learning and social/behavioral interventions, and meta-analysis. His work is supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences and Office of Special Education Programs and the American Psychological Association. Jason is co-director of the UMD Language and Literacy Research Center, research fellow in the Minority Education, Recruitment, Retention and Equity Center (MERREC), and a visiting Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore School of Medicine. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions and Assessment for Effective Intervention.
Associate Professor Chris DeLuca
Christopher DeLuca is an Associate Professor and Graduate Faculty member in Classroom Assessment at the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. He leads the Classroom Assessment Research Team and is a member of the Queen’s Assessment and Evaluation Group. Chris’ research examines the complex intersection of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment as operating within the current context of school accountability and standards-based education. His work largely focuses on supporting teachers in negotiating these critical areas of practice to enhance student learning experiences. Chris’ research has been recognized through several awards and has received continuous funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Ms Gaenor Dixon
Gaenor Dixon is responsible for the statewide strategic leadership of therapy and nursing services within a State education department. Gaenor is currently a Principal Investigator on the Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage Project. Between 2015-2019, she was the President of Speech Pathology Australia (SPA), the peak professional body for over 10,000 speech pathologists in Australia.
Professor Markku Jahnukainen
Markku Jahnukainen is Professor of Special Education at the Faculty of Educational Sciences in University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada and served as Visiting Professor in Comparative and International Inclusive Education Research in Humboldt University Berlin, Germany 2013-14. His recent publications are related to comparative education research in inclusive education, in addition to longitudinal research on young people in vulnerable life situations. Professor Jahnukainen is the past President of the Finnish Educational Research Association FERA (2012-2015).
Professor Alastair McEwin AM
Professor Alastair McEwin AM is a Professor of Practice in Disability at UNSW. He has extensive experience in disability and human rights, and a strong record of service to Australia through senior executive and Commonwealth statutory office holder roles. Profoundly deaf, Alastair has held numerous management and governance roles in the private, government and non‑government sectors. He has served as Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, and as a Royal Commissioner with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
Alastair’s role at UNSW is focused on translating the findings and recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission into systemic reforms that produce policies and practices for greater societal inclusion of disabled people.
He is also a Senior Fellow with the Grattan Institute’s Disability Program, which produces public policy recommendations on current Australian disability issues.
Professor Laura Lundy
Professor Laura Lundy is Co-Director of the Centre for Children’s Rights and a Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University, Belfast. She is co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Children’s Rights. Her expertise is in children’s right to participate in decision-making, education rights and the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Her 2007 paper,“’Voice’ is not enough” is one of the most highly cited academic papers on children’s rights. Professor Lundy has extensive practical experience of participatory research with children of all ages in diverse social and geographical contexts.
Professor Andrew Martin
Andrew J. Martin, PhD, is Scientia Professor, Professor of Educational Psychology, and Co-Chair of the Educational Psychology Research Group in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He specializes in motivation, engagement, achievement, and quantitative research methods. He is also Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, Honorary Professor in the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney, Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and Fellow of the (Australian) College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists. Although the bulk of his research focuses on motivation, engagement, and achievement, Andrew also researches academic resilience and academic buoyancy, adaptability, goal setting, and teacher-student relationships.
Ms Catia Malaquias OAM
Catia Malaquias is a lawyer, director and human rights and inclusion advocate. She is currently undertaking PhD studies in the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University. Catia is a co-founder of national not-for-profit organisation All Means All and was instrumental in establishing the Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education. She is also the founder of Starting With Julius, a not-for-profit organisation for disability inclusive media, and sits on several not–for-profit boards. Catia has participated in United Nations processes on the rights of people with disabilities and has spoken at the UN in New York and Geneva. In 2021 Catia was recognised by Australasian Lawyer as one of Australia’s Most Influential Lawyers. In 2018 she won a Human Rights Award from the Australian Human Rights Commission and was recognised as Australia’s most influential woman in Diversity and Inclusion, winning the AFR Women of Influence Award. In 2017 Catia won a National Disability Award from the Australian Government.
Professor Robert Pianta
Robert Pianta (PhD) is Dean of the Curry School of Education, Novartis US Foundation Professor of Education, and founding director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at the University of Virginia. His work has advanced the conceptualization of teacher-student interactions and relationships, documenting their contributions to students’ learning and development. He has led research and development on measurement and improvement tools that help teachers interact with students more effectively and that are used widely in the United States and around the world, including at QUT. He began his career as a special education teacher and joined UVA in 1986, after completing a PhD in Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He was named a Fellow of the American Education Research Association and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Minnesota in 2016.
Associate Professor Stuart R. Poyntz
Stuart R. Poyntz is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, and Director of the Community Engaged Research Centre (CERi). He has been a Visiting Scholar at QUT and was President of the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People from 2012-2017. Stuart’s research addresses children’s media cultures, theories of public life and urban youth media production. He is currently Principal Investigator of the SSHRC-funded research project, Youthsites: Charting the non-formal arts learning sector in creative lives, and has published four books and has published widely in national and international peer-reviewed journals.
Professor Sheila Riddell
Sheila Riddell is Chair in Inclusion and Diversity and Director of the Centre for Research in Education, Inclusion and Diversity (CREID) in the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. She has worked at the University of Edinburgh since October 2003 and was previously Director of the Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research at the University of Glasgow. Sheila’s research interests are in the broad field of equality and social inclusion, with particular reference to gender, social class and disability in the fields of education, training, employment and social care. Sheila is currently working on projects investigating higher education, lifelong learning policy, and special and inclusive education across Europe.
Associate Professor Emma Sciberras
Emma Sciberras is an Associate Professor and Clinical Psychologist in the School of Psychology at Deakin University. She is also a Team Leader in the Health Services Research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Emma holds a Career Development Fellowship funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council. Emma leads an ADHD research group focused on understanding the long-term outcomes associated with ADHD and how we can best help children and adolescents to reach their potential. She published over 90 peer-reviewed papers on the topic of ADHD.
Professor Pamela Snow
Pamela Snow is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology at La Trobe University. She is a registered psychologist, having qualified originally in speech pathology. Her research spans various aspects of risk in childhood and adolescence, and focuses on the oral language skills of youth offenders and those in the state care system; the role of oral language competence as a protective factor in childhood and adolescence; applying evidence in the language-to-literacy transition in the early years of school; and the linguistic aspects of investigative interviewing with children and adolescents in criminal investigations. Professor Snow has over 120 publications and is frequently called upon to address education, health, welfare, and forensic audiences.
Dr Peta Spyrou
Peta Spyrou is a socio-legal researcher and lawyer. She is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Adelaide and a member of the Australian Discrimination Law Experts Group and the Berkeley Center for Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law. Her research examines the intersection of disability discrimination, dispute resolution, and education policy. Her interest and involvement in the disability community has been developed through her previous industry experience as a support worker. Dr Spyrou’s work is driven by a commitment to advancing inclusion and accessibility through law and policy reform. In 2024, she appeared before the Social Development Committee of South Australia for its inquiry into the establishment of a Human Rights Act in SA.