Experts
Director
Enterprise Professor Sandra Milligan
03 9035 7801 s.milligan@unimelb.edu.au Find an ExpertSandra Milligan is Director and Enterprise Professor with the Assessment Research Centre at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. Sandra’s current research interests focus on assessment, micro-credentialing and warranting of hard-to-assess learning.
Her most recent research examined how ‘big data’ and developmental assessment approaches can be used on digital learning platforms, to support assessment of higher-order learning skills such as ‘21st Century skills’, or learning skills. Originally trained as a teacher of science and mathematics, she is also a former Director of Curriculum in an Australian state education department, and has held senior research, management and governance positions in a range of educational organisations, including government agencies, not-for-profits, small start-up businesses and large, listed, international corporations. She was co-founder of The Good Universities Guide series, and has a background in technology commercialisation in education. She is the Convenor of a Melbourne University MOOC targeting professional learning for teachers in the area of assessment and teaching of 21C skills, which has to date has enrolled over 30,000 teachers worldwide.
Jayne Johnston
03 8344 4926 jayne.johnston@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Acting Deputy Director, Melbourne Enterprise Fellow
Jayne's current research and development interests include the assessment and recognition of complex competencies, supporting schools and systems to understand and use developmental assessment tools to support teaching and personalise learning and explorations of alternate designs for credentialing student work at graduation.
Jayne has had over 20 years’ experience in senior executive positions in public education departments in WA, ACT and SA with roles including curriculum and assessment design, leadership development and the design of improvement and accountability systems. Prior to joining the ARC, Jayne was Deputy Chief Executive in the South Australian Department of Education and Child Development, responsible for leading preschool and school improvement in over 900 sites across the state. She was a board member of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority and served on a number of national and state level working parties. Jayne began her career as a secondary mathematics teacher in WA where she led the development of the First Steps in Mathematics teaching and learning resources and was founding director of the WA Professional Learning Institute.
Staff
Dr BM Monjurul Alom
03 9035 7880 monjurul.alom@unimelb.edu.au
Programmer
Monjurul works on software development specifically for the assessment of 21st century skills, including collaborative problem solving. He programs online assessment tasks and scoring algorithms. Monjurul has proficiency in web programming (game development, database application) and server administration.
He has developed ARC online testing system, registration portal system, multiplayer collaborative games and scoring engine to assess the ability of students, which is being used in schools in Australia and Internationally. His research also includes data mining and management for large scale databases.
He completed a PhD (Computer Science) in 2011 at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was an Assistant Professor at Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology from 2000–2007.
Nafisa Awwal
03 9035 4001 n.awwal@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Nafisa specialises in the design, development and implementation of web-based educational assessments, reporting and other data collection tools. She manages system integration and architecture for traditional and innovative, individual and collaborative assessments for students in multiple languages. She is also involved in data management, analysis and item writing.
Her research interests are focused on the assessment and measurement of 21st century skills, including application of novel technologies in delivering automated tests and reporting to teachers and students.
Dr Farhan Azim
Research Fellow
Farhan currently works across projects nationally and internationally developing psychometrically sound assessments. His research interests include development of novel assessment instruments, measurement theory, teachers' assessment capacity building, and better use of student data for teaching.
Farhan's PhD was in the area of assessment of mathematical problem solving. He has previously worked in other areas of assessment including teachers' assessment literacy, assessment in STEM, etc. He has also worked in research, monitoring and evaluation of large-scale education projects and taught assessment and research related courses at tertiary institutes in the past. His works have been disseminated through refereed journals, book chapters and international academic conferences.
Dr Bruce Beswick
03 9035 8718 bruceab@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Bruce works across a range of projects developing assessment materials and exploring challenges in assessment practice. His most recent work has focused on the assessment of general capabilities. Bruce has a strong interest in the exploration of differences in evaluation and judgement and he completed a PhD in aesthetic judgement in 2012.
Megan Collins
03 8344 6857 megan.collins@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Megan Collins is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in assessment. Her work involves coordinating and teaching in the Master of Teaching program (Early Childhood and Primary and Secondary) and the Master of Clinical Teaching.
Megan has extensive research and consultancy experience, both nationally and internationally, relating to the development of instruments to assess general capabilities, competency-based education, and micro-credentialing.
Megan has worked across a variety of international educational contexts employed as an educator and administrator. She has a special interest in the assessment of general capabilities and assessment in an international context.
Narelle English
03 9035 5748 narelle.english@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Narelle is a Research Fellow, Lecturer in assessment and Doctoral candidate at the Assessment Research Centre, University of Melbourne. Her research projects are assessment related and she works on projects relating to developmental learning and the design and development of data collection tools and assessments. She has designed and implemented assessment for teaching programs in the Master of Teaching, Master of Education, the Network of Schools project within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, and the Department of Education’s Bastow Institute. She is currently working on projects with the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership in formative assessment and the Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership on a principal assessment.
Narelle has also taught and held leadership positions in department schools in Victoria, and overseas in the US state system and an international school in Japan.
Jayne Johnston
03 8344 4926 jayne.johnston@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Acting Deputy Director, Melbourne Enterprise Fellow
Jayne's current research and development interests include the assessment and recognition of complex competencies, supporting schools and systems to understand and use developmental assessment tools to support teaching and personalise learning and explorations of alternate designs for credentialing student work at graduation.
Jayne has had over 20 years’ experience in senior executive positions in public education departments in WA, ACT and SA with roles including curriculum and assessment design, leadership development and the design of improvement and accountability systems. Prior to joining the ARC, Jayne was Deputy Chief Executive in the South Australian Department of Education and Child Development, responsible for leading preschool and school improvement in over 900 sites across the state. She was a board member of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority and served on a number of national and state level working parties. Jayne began her career as a secondary mathematics teacher in WA where she led the development of the First Steps in Mathematics teaching and learning resources and was founding director of the WA Professional Learning Institute.
Dr Toshiko Kamei
03 8344 7287 kamei.t@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Toshiko has worked on projects to investigate the assessment and recognition of competencies in school age students and adults.
Her main focus has been to work on the SWANs/ABLES project that aims to develop resources to assess foundational skills in students with disability. Prior to her time at the Centre, she taught in primary, secondary and specialist settings in Canada, England, Japan and Australia.
Toshiko’s research interests include the assessment of complex competencies, measurement theory, and raising the capacity of teachers to educate all students.
Dr Lan Anh Nguyen Khoa
Research Fellow
Lan Anh is a Research Fellow at the Assessment Research Centre who believes that assessment is to inform teaching. Her primary research interests are psychometrics, educational measurement and applied statistics focused on competency-based assessment and large-scale assessments (PISA, TIMSS).
Lan Anh has extensive research experience in developing and reporting on the validity and reliability of instruments using a variety of computer software packages, including Mplus, ACER ConQuest, Facet model, Pascal, and R programming language, SAS, IBM SPSS Statistics. She can also apply Item Response Theory, Structural Equation Modelling, and Multi-level Modelling.
Her PhD research focused on modelling generic problem-solving underlying domain-specific and domain-general problem-solving. Before joining the University of Melbourne, Lan Anh worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and she spent 15 years teaching pre-teachers for the Department of Physics, Hue University. Her work has been recognised in refereed journals, book chapters, international academic conferences. She was also awarded the Melbourne Education Research Institute Research Higher Degree Travelling Scholarship (2019), and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education Thesis to Publications Awards (2021).
Debbie Krapywnyj
03 9035 4677 debbie.krapywnyj@unimelb.edu.au
Centre Coordinator
Debbie’s work includes managing the financial, human resources and administrative functions of the Centre.
Debbie provides operational advice and support to ARC staff and students in accordance with University policies and procedures.
Dr Kate Lafferty
03 8344 2826 k.lafferty@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Lecturer
Kate has 23 years teaching experience across primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Her research interests lie in both educational assessment and the sociology of education. Her PhD focused on the ways in which educational resources and conformity to social gender norms influenced both achievement and fields of study at tertiary level. Kate’s specialised work in schools has spanned second language teaching (Indonesian), science education, gifted education and curriculum and program development. She has worked with several schools as a consultant in gifted education and is an experienced writer and presenter of professional learning for teachers. Kate has lectured in a range of subjects including assessment, pedagogy, science education, and gifted education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She is currently involved in projects in the areas of general capabilities assessment, micro-credentialing, and competency-based education.
Dr Rebekah Luo
03 8344 8432 rebekah.luo@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Rebekah’s area of interest and expertise is in the assessment and credentialing of general capabilities or complex competencies.
She leads research and consultancy projects relating to micro-credentialing and development of instruments or methodologies to assess complex competencies. She is also involved in other types of work such as evaluation projects and independent reviews of assessment systems or instruments.
Ruth McHale
03 9035 5077 ruth.mchale@unimelb.edu.au
Administrative Officer
Ruth is the Administrative Officer within the Assessment Research Centre. Working closely with the Business, Operations and Commercialisation Manager, Ruth provides a high level of administrative support to the Centre to ensure the delivery of the core Centre outcomes. In addition, Ruth provides day to day support for the Centre Director and assists in the administration of HR associated issues.
Dr Sadia Nawaz
03 8344 1616 nawaz.s@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Sadia Nawaz is a Research Fellow, working with the psychometrics team at the Assessment Research Centre. She helps analyse the assessments data to report on data collection issues, data reliability and validity. Sadia also assists with automatic reports generation for Ruby.
Sadia’s doctoral research encompasses concepts from learning analytics, data science, cognitive science and education technology. In her PhD research, she analysed learners’ affective states, such as confusion. She also analysed the moment by moment changes in learners’ task difficulties within simulation-based learning environments and assessed how task difficulties could manifest behaviorally. Sadia is passionate to conduct rigorous research for understanding how students learn and how their learning experiences can be facilitated.
Sadia is passionate to give back to society. In recognition of her volunteer activities, she was awarded the Leaders in Communities Award (LiCA) - 2020 and was also nominated for the Melbourne Community Excellence Award (2019).
Dr Cuc Nguyen
03 8344 9540 cuc.nguyen@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Senior Research Fellow
Dr Nguyen has been working for the Assessment Research Centre since 2003. She has extensive experience in large-scale assessment and survey design, with particular expertise in instrument development, sampling design, data management and data analysis. Dr Nguyen is skilled in the development and validation of instruments for measuring knowledge, skills and competencies, and application of Item Response Theory, Structural Equation Modelling and Multi-level Modelling.
She has taught highly specialised postgraduate subjects and professional development courses in assessment and quantitative methods, including Introductory Assessment Design, Quantitative Methods, Large Scale Assessment in Evaluation, Scale Development and Analysis, Introduction to Assessment, Statistics and Software in Measurement and Evaluation, and Projects in Evaluation and Assessment. She has been involved in research, teaching and coordinating capacity building courses for Australia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Singapore, Sri-lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Dr Jason Pietzner
03 8344 8699 jason.pietzner@unimelb.edu.au
Lecturer
Jason's PhD examined the development of critical thinking in secondary students. Before this Dr Pietzner worked in primary and secondary schools for a period of 18 years where he was a generalist primary and VCE philosophy and English teacher as well as holding a variety of leadership positions. Dr Pietzner has lectured in a range of subjects in the MGSE in the areas of assessment, pedagogy, and philosophy of education and has supervised teacher candidates in schools. Jason is currently involved in national and international projects with schools and education departments in the areas of general capabilities assessment, micro-credentialing and competency-based education.
Angela Pollock
03 8344 1485 angela.pollock@unimelb.edu.au
Director, Network Of Schools
Angela leads the Melbourne Graduate School of Education’s flagship collaboration with Australian primary and secondary schools. In addition, she teaches into the University’s Master of Teaching and has worked as the Partnerships Manager for the MGSE; supporting the University’s commitment to unite educational research with in-school practice. Angela is an experienced school leader, with 16 years’ experience working in schools. She holds a Master of School Leadership and is passionate about the potential for school improvement and transformation borne from effective collaboration between the University and partner schools.
Ben Reeves
Research Fellow
Ben Reeves is a Research Fellow and PhD candidate in the Assessment Research Centre (ARC). He has particular research interests in assessing general capabilities, ethics education and learner agency. He has recently developed an assessment framework to support the teaching of ethical decision-making and inquiry. In 2020 he was awarded the Melbourne University Frieda Cohen prize for most meritorious education research thesis.
Ben has over14 years experience teaching Philosophy, English, Critical Thinking and Ethics, and IBDP Theory of Knowledge, running departments and leading professional learning communities. He has presented numerous workshops on concept-based learning, visible thinking, teaching and assessing ethical capability, and collaborative problem-solving; and lead collaborative school networks combining Harvard Cultures of Thinking and instructional rounds methodology. He is currently a member of the ARC New Metrics for Success research team.
Professor Field Rickards
03 8344 8427 f.rickards@unimelb.edu.au
Professor Rickards is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Assessment Research Centre, and is co-director of the Assessment, Curriculum and Technology Research Centre based in the Philippines. He is a Professorial Fellow in the Melbourne School of Government and leads research on policy for education and health in the early years. He was Dean of Education at the University of Melbourne from August 2004 to July 2017. In 2013 received the Sir James Darling Medal from the Australian College of Educators (Victorian Branch) in recognition of his ‘profound’ impact on education in Victorian and Australia. He has been awarded the tile of Dean Emeritus by the University for his ‘sustained transformational leadership’.
Dr Pam Robertson
03 8344 9537 p.robertson@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Research Fellow
Pam works on projects relating to assessment design, the use of assessment data to inform decision making, and the alignment of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Pam has experience both within Australia and internationally. She also teaches several subjects in the area of assessment.
Hilary Slater
03 9035 4425 h.slater@unimelb.edu.au
Business, Operations and Commercialisation Manager
Hilary is responsible for providing leadership and operational management of the Assessment Research Centre's research, engagement and commercial operations and provides high quality expertise and planning to deliver strategies in line with the goals and objectives of the Centre. She manages the Centre's provision of online assessment and reporting products for research, government and commercial clients and fulfils the role of Project Manager for several of the Centre's projects. She leads a team of professional staff responsible for a range of services that support the administration, development and delivery of high quality research, engagement and consultancy projects.
She completed her Masters of Project Management in 2019.
Professor Mark Wilson
wilson.m@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Professor of Assessment
Mark's interests focus on measurement and applied statistics. His work spans a range of issues in measurement and assessment from the development of new statistical models for analysing measurement data, to the development of new assessments in subject matter areas such as science education, patient-reported outcomes and child development, to policy issues in the use of assessment data in accountability systems.
Faye Xu
03 9035 4438 faye.xu@unimelb.edu.au
Communications and Project Manager
Faye plays a central role in delivering on research, engagement and commercial priorities associated with Assessment Research Centre’s research-practice partnerships and other school engagement projects. Her responsibilities include managing various research and commercial projects to ensure partnerships meet specified objectives, developing and disseminating communications across digital platforms and managing events to build interest and engagement in the programs.
Faye is an experienced tertiary education manager with over 11 years’ experience in both onshore and offshore teams of Group of Eight universities. She has demonstrated success in commercialisation project and partnership management, stakeholder relationship development, research activity coordination and international collaborations. Faye holds a Master of Commerce (Marketing) from the University of Adelaide and a Bachelor of Management (International Business) from Shandong University, China.
Richard Xu
Chief Technology Officer
Richard works as the Chief Technology Officer for ARC’s new Ruby assessment platform - a major, world class, research-based, strategic initiative of the Assessment Research Centre, designed to support the implementation of competency-based, evidence-oriented teaching and learning. Richard oversees its architecture design, development, security and governance. Richard pushes this platform to be cloud-based and also on-premises capable, with modern technologies and practices. By working closely with researchers, Richard is able to demonstrate outstanding research-based pedagogy results, from a robust enterprise grade software system. Ruby system has been successfully rolled out for the clients like Ministry of Education, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Department of Education and Training, Victoria and Latrobe Valley Authority.
Dr Zhonghua Zhang
03 9035 8597 zhonghua.zhang@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Senior Research Fellow
Zhonghua’s expertise lies in the area of educational measurement and statistics.
He works on the application of advanced quantitative methods in educational and psychological studies. His studies have been published in refereed journals, book chapters and international academic conferences.
Honoraries
Peter Adams
Peter Adams is an internationally recognised and respected professional with over 40 years' experience; specialising in assessment and educational performance.
Peter is Director and Principal of the Melbourne-based education company, BetterEd Pty Ltd. He is also Global Director for the Balanced Scorecard for Schools (BSfS) school improvement programme with Marshall Cavendish Education, Singapore. Peter designed and developed the BSfS programme over a period of five years.
Peter's practical knowledge and understanding of school education was strengthened by 18 years teaching in Victoria, which included numerous school leadership roles. Subsequently, Peter moved into the public and private sector where he has held a range of executive management roles in prominent education programmes and organisations internationally. He has held positions as General Manager at ACARA, ESA, and ACER, and National Manager Assessment, for Pearson plc.
Peter has had global management responsibility for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 based at the OECD, Paris. He has established national education programmes in both Australia (NAPLAN, MySchool, and NAPLAN Online) and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (NAP). He has been an expert advisor on assessment and education quality assurance to the Minister of Education in Saudi Arabia and also the Minister of State for Higher Education in the United Arab Emirates.
Peter has undergraduate qualifications in Economics, Politics, and Education, post-graduate qualifications in Education, Accounting and Finance, and Art Education. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Peter is author of The Balanced Scorecard for Schools (2019), and is married with four children living in Melbourne, Australia.
Dr Therese Bustos
Therese Bustos has served as ACTRC’s Philippine Director since 2014. She is an Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of the Philippines-Diliman and the former Dean of the College of Education. She is the Chair of the Technical Committee for Special Education and a member of the Technical Panel on Teacher Education of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).
She is active in research on Philippine basic education with a focus on inclusion and persons with disabilities. Her recent roles in research on inclusive education include Lead Researcher of the Incorporating Disability in the Conditional Cash Transfer Program and Project Director of the Philippines Response to Indigenous Peoples and Muslim Education Program. Her other research interests are student achievement and deaf literacy.
Professor Esther Care
Esther Care, a Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution in the Global Economy and Development Program in Washington DC, is engaged in identification of effective assessment practices that inform policy, and classroom teaching and learning. She works extensively in the Asia Pacific and Africa to provide evidence-based advice to ministries of education implementing or planning to implement major education reform. With the increasing focus globally on the need to promote transferable competencies, such as problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration, she works with groups of countries to identify how to incorporate these skills into the educational process. She also leads and participates in working groups convened by UNESCO Institute of Statistics to consider strategies for monitoring progress against the Sustainable Development Goals and particularly goal 4.7 which attends to education for sustainable development and global citizenship. Professor Care has a background in educational psychology, and assessment of enabling and 21st century skills.
Linda Corrin
Linda is Associate Professor of Learning Analytics at Swinburne University of Technology. She has more than 18 years’ experience working in higher education and has taught in the fields of education, business, and IT. Her research interests include learning analytics, educational technology, assessment, feedback and learning design. She is currently working on several research projects exploring how learning analytics can be used to provide meaningful and timely feedback to academics and students. Linda is co-founder of the Victorian/Tasmanian Learning Analytics Network and is a co-ordinator of the ASCILITE Learning Analytics Special Interest Group.
Lynn Davie
Lynn has expertise in leading policy advice and programs to support improved teaching and learning practices in schools. Lynn led the Victorian New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL) Cluster, which is part of the NPDL Global Partnership, with seven participating countries, led by Michael Fullan. NPDL focuses on the pillars of pedagogical practices, learning environments, leveraging digital and learning partnerships and how they can be used to plan teaching and learning programs, which provide opportunities for deep learning.
Lynn has extensive experience supporting and driving innovation and educational reform, building collective efficacy for successful school change. Lynn has worked as a teacher, school leader, university lecturer and senior public servant. She is a highly regarded educator, who has been recognised locally and internationally for her work in learning and teaching and how to embed digital technologies to add value.
Lynn has an interest in designing professional learning and is currently the UMNOS 18 Coordinator.
Associate Professor Marlene Ferido
marleneferido.ferido@unimelb.edu.au
Marlene Ferido served as Curriculum Program Leader of the Assessment, Curriculum and Technology Research Centre (ACTRC) since its establishment in 2013 until her appointment as Deputy Director of the Centre in August 2019. She was project lead of ACTRC’s Science Curriculum Project, Progress of Students through the Science Curriculum and currently involved in the Curriculum Review project. Her area of interest includes curriculum development, assessment of student learning, and conceptual change.
Marlene completed a PhD Science Education (with specialisation in Chemistry) from the University of the Philippines (UP). She is an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Faculty of Education of UP Open University. As Science Education Specialist at UP National Institute for Science & Mathematics Education Development from 1997-2019, she led research and professional development projects in science education for teachers from Kenya, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Dr Donna Harvey
Donna Harvey is a Deputy Principal at Beenleigh State High School, Queensland. She has extensive experience working as a teacher, school leader and university lecturer. Through 3 years of working with the University of Melbourne Network of Schools (UMNOS), Donna led a school-wide literacy improvement strategy based on modelled reading and conferencing. Through promoting collective teacher efficacy, the school reported the 7th highest improvement on NAPLAN scores for the State of Queensland in 2019.
In collaboration with UMNOS (Assessing, Teaching and Micro-credentialing Complex Competencies and General Capabilities) Donna has designed a learning progression to assess employability skills. The matrix was designed following synthesis of the Australian Curriculum General Capabilities, Queensland Curriculum Assessment Authority’s 21st Century Skills, the Employability Skills Framework, and the OECD Learning Framework 2030. Donna is currently working with Credley and Everitas to provide an online platform for micro-credentialing and badging.
Donna is currently working with the University of Queensland and the Queensland Government Impact Centre to incorporate critical thinking into curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The approach will be assessed later this year following the development of a metric designed to measure student growth in critical thinking.
Katherine Henderson
Katherine.henderson@unimelb.edu.au
Katherine has a background in health and education, in Victoria and the Northern Territory, at state and local government levels. She was recruited to MGSE from industry with a long, strong history in implementing changed systems and practices leading to improved outcomes in health and education.
As the Director of the University of Melbourne Network of Schools, 2013 – 2018, Katherine established and led the University of Melbourne Network of Schools, (UMNOS), engaging 109 schools to the end of 2018. UMNOS offers schools’ educational leaders (practitioners) partnership with world class researchers with the aim of improving student learning outcomes and to model this for the broader school education sector. UMNOS has been unique in its diversity, engaging schools from the richest to the poorest; from every sector, Government, Catholic and independent; primary, secondary and special; regional, rural and urban; with students from early learning to Year 12. UMNOS retained 109 of its 115 participating schools over the four years of operation to 2018.
For her work with UMNOS, Katherine was awarded the MGSE Engagement Excellence Award in 2017 and in the University of Melbourne Award for Excellence in Engagement Public Value in 2018.
As a public servant, Katherine held a number of senior positions at Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Regional Director level. For example, from 2008 to 2012 Katherine was the Regional Director of the Western Metropolitan Region (WMR) of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development Victoria, including 142 schools with 77,500 students. The Western Metropolitan Region had a persistent history of poor performance. Katherine led the work in transforming the culture in school education, from a welfare focus – educators held low expectations and accepted poor learning outcomes – to a strong, confident, collaborative culture, committed to building student learning outcomes, and underpinned by very strong practice in student wellbeing. The success of this transformation was demonstrated by significant improvements in student learning outcomes, and student well-being measures, for example:
Using 2008 NAPLAN as a base year, compared to all regions, the region’s student data in literacy and numeracy showed the highest growth in student learning (effect size) between 2008 and 2012; and the biggest gains compared to the state mean in absolute data. School Wide Positive Behaviours Support evaluation data showed significant improvements in student well -being.
Katherine has a continuing interest in supporting leaders in education to effect significant improvements in students’ learning, drawing on the powers of collective efficacy to do this.
Dr Peter Hill
Peter Hill is an Honorary Professorial Fellow within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne.
He has held senior positions in education in Australia, the USA and Hong Kong, including as Chief Executive of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Board, Chief General Manager of the Department of School Education in Victoria, Australia, Professor of Leadership and Management at The University of Melbourne, Director of Research and Development at the National Center on Education and the Economy in Washington D.C., Secretary General of the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority and Chief Executive of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority.
Peter’s expertise is in the areas of education administration, curriculum development, assessment and certification. He frequently advises and assists on system-level educational reform and review initiatives.
Professor Emeritus Barry McGaw AO
Barry McGaw is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the University of Melbourne, a Senior Fellow in the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) and an Emeritus Professor of Murdoch University. He was on the staff of the Assessment Research Centre part time as a Professorial Fellow in a series of roles from 2006 to 2019, including as Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute (2006-2008), Executive Director of the Cisco, Intel, Microsoft International Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project (2009-2010) and Interim Director of the Assessment Research Centre (2015-2017) and as a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow (2011 to 2014).
Prior to returning to Australia at the end of 2005, Professor McGaw was Director for Education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) based in Paris. He had earlier been Executive Director of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and, prior to that, Professor of Education at Murdoch University. He began his professional career as a secondary school science teacher in Queensland. Dr McGaw is a psychologist. His research interests are educational assessment and policy and, more recently because of his role in the development of Australia’s first national curriculum, in curriculum development.
Dr McGaw holds a PhD in educational psychology and measurement from the University of Illinois, an Honorary Doctorate in Education from Murdoch University and a Doctor of Laws honoris causa from the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Psychological Society and the Australian College of Educators.
Matthew O'Hanlon
Matt O’Hanlon has been a Teacher with Education Queensland since 1985 and a Principal from 2001. In that time he has worked in rural, remote, mining, provincial and metropolitan schools with the last 12 years as Principal of Beenleigh State High School in Logan City. His focus has been on setting aspirational targets and timelines to improve student outcomes through building the capacity of his staff, and ensuring the community is a partner in this process. One of the challenges of working in complex school environments is that socio economic interventions can sometimes create unproductive contentiousness. As a result the school is part of the Beenleigh-Yatala business community developing significant corporate partners that have led to a focus on productive partnerships to ensure that all students will exit with 21st century capabilities, and the confidence to participate effectively in the their own futures. As a result, corporate support within the community champions the work the school performs for all students.
Matt empowers the prevailing mindset from a ‘top down’ model, to one where a school community is empowered to make key decisions locally that positively impact on student outcomes. Recent work within the University of Melbourne-Network of Schools (UMNOS) has focussed on literacy and micro credentialing using latest educational research and theory as a design for changes being implemented at the school.
Matt has a broad range of experiences building partnerships that cater for every student preparing each for their modern global world which may take many and varied forms.
Professor Field Rickards
03 8344 8427 f.rickards@unimelb.edu.au
Field Rickards is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Assessment Research Centre, and is co-director of the Assessment, Curriculum and Technology Research Centre based in the Philippines. He is a Professorial Fellow in the Melbourne School of Government and leads research to policy for education and health in the early years.
He was Dean of Education at the University of Melbourne from August 2004 to July 2017. His was first appointed lecturer in audiology at the University of Melbourne in 1973 and joined the Faculty of Education in 1989 and became Professor of Education of the Hearing-Impaired in 1994. He was President of the Academic Board from 2003-July 2004. As Dean, he has guided the transformation of the Faculty of Education to a Graduate School and has reformed the professional training of teachers through the new clinical Master of Teaching program which develops graduates with the capabilities to meet the needs of individual learners. He was a member of the Commonwealth’s Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group in 2014.
In 1971, he was one of a small group to become the first research students with Professor Graeme Clark in the Bionic Ear program. His research that has led to the development of a computer-based brain wave audiometer (ASSR) to accurately measure hearing in newborn babies. The instrument is currently being manufactured in the USA. His move from audiology to education of the hearing impaired focussed his research on early detection (the Victorian Infant Hearing Screening Program) and early diagnosis of hearing impairment, early intervention (play development and social competence) and factors affecting the educational outcomes for hearing impaired.
He is a Fellow of the Audiological Society of Australia, the Australian College of Educators and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Council of Educational Leaders. In 2013 received the Sir James Darling Medal from ACE (Victorian Branch) in recognition of his ‘profound’ impact on education in Victorian and Australia, and for his ‘ground-breaking work in teacher preparation and his passionate advocacy for the profession’. He has been awarded the tile of Dean Emeritus by the University for his ‘sustained transformational leadership’.
Mike Salvaris
Mike manages the ANDI Project, based at Melbourne Graduate School of Education. With a background in democracy, human rights and community development, he has worked for over 20 years to develop new community, national and international social progress measures.
Mike has held honorary professorial appointments at Victoria University, RMIT, Deakin University and Toulouse University (France) and been an advisor to the Victorian Premier, the OECD, the UN Research Institute on Social Development, trade unions and local governments.
Dr Carl Santos
Kevin Carl Santos is a Research Fellow at the Assessment, Curriculum, and Technology Research Centre (ACTRC) in the Philippines. Starting August 2021, he will be an Associate Professor at the Educational Research Area of the College of Education in the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He finished his Ph.D. in Statistics in the same university last 2018. He was a Visiting Research Scholar at the Graduate School of Education in Rutgers The State University of New Jersey (2015-2016) and a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Cognitive Diagnosis Modeling at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong (2018-2019). His research interests include psychometrics, particularly cognitive diagnosis modeling and secondary analysis of large-scale educational assessments.
Dr Jane Strickland
jane.strickland@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Lecturer
Jane lectures across post-graduate programs and has a background in teaching primary, secondary and special education. Her interest lies in supporting teachers' instruction of all learners through development and interpretation of high-quality assessment and associated learning progressions. Jane works in a range of projects developing assessment materials; including frameworks and learning progressions for schools, education systems and agencies.
She completed her PhD focused on development and use of learning progressions of emergent numeracy in 2018.
Dr Mike Timms
Mike Timms is Director of EdTech Evaluation, a consulting company dedicated to improving the effectiveness of education technology through applied research. He brings together decades of executive level business experience plus expertise in education research to help education systems be informed about how education technology works and how to make informed decisions about buying products.
Mike is highly experienced in running educational research and development projects and is a recognised leader in the development of innovative ways to assess students in digital learning environments.
Mike was formerly at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) where he held positions as Director of Research Development and Quality Assurance and Director of Assessment and Psychometric Research. While at ACER he led the development of high-quality assessments and conducted cutting edge research in educational measurement. Mike served on the executive of the Science of Learning Research Centre, in which researchers from education, neuroscience and cognitive psychology are working together with teachers to understand the learning process.
Prior to joining ACER, Mike was Associate Director of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Program at WestEd, a preeminent educational research and development organisation in the United States. He led large-scale research studies in STEM education, with special focus on computer-based assessment projects, especially through the SimScientists research program (www.simscientists.org). He was involved in the development of two assessment frameworks for the US National Assessment of Educational Progress for which he was awarded the Paul Hood award for excellence in educational research at WestEd.
Karen Underwood
Karen Underwood is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Assessment Research Centre, University of Melbourne. She was the Department of Education and Training’s industry partner representative on two Australian Research Council Linkage projects that resulted in the development of skill-based developmental pathways for student learners with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She has a strong interest in the theory and practice of developmental assessment and has brought those understandings to her work on an assessment tool for children with disabilities in education and care settings.
Alongside her work with the university Karen is the manager of Learning Difficulties at the Department of Education and Training, and an adviser on adjustments for students with disabilities with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. She works with teachers, schools and regional staff to better understand and respond to student learners with disabilities.
Dr Alvin Vista
03 9035 3037 vistaa@unimelb.edu.au
Alvin Vista is a Global Specialist at Teach For All, where his main role is to support partners across more than 50 countries in the global network to identify learning outcomes that are critical for student success.
Dr Vista was previously a fellow in the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution in the United States, where he worked with multiple national partners in Asia on the assessment of 21st century skills. Prior to that, he was also a research fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research working as an assessment specialist in several large-scale international, regional, and national surveys. He was also previously affiliated with the University of Melbourne as a Research Fellow at the Assessment Research Centre and as a sessional Lecturer at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.
Dr Vista was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Georgia in the United States where he did an M.A. in Educational Psychology, and obtained his Ph.D. in Educational Measurement from the University of Melbourne.
Dr Kerry Woods
k.woods@unimelb.edu.au Find an Expert
Dr Kerry Woods joined the Assessment Research Centre in 2002 and retired from her position as Senior Research Fellow in 2018. In her time at the Centre, Dr Woods specialised in the design and use of surveys and achievement testing materials for large scale programs of evaluation. She conducted evaluation studies of the deployment of native-speaking English teachers in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools, and of the impact of new technologies on learning outcomes for students in primary, secondary and special education schools. From 2006 onwards, her research interests centred on the design and validation of measures of communication and literacy to support teachers’ decisions about the instruction of their students with learning difficulties. Her work has led to the development of an integrated program of advice and support for teachers of students with additional learning needs – the SWANs program.
Professor Margaret Wu
Margaret Wu has a background in statistics and educational measurement. She has had an extensive involvement in large-scale assessment programs including PISA and TIMSS. Margaret is a co-author of two item response modelling software programs: ACER ConQuest and TAM (an R package). She has recently published a textbook, Educational Measurement for Applied Researchers. Margaret has taught a number of courses in educational assessment, and conducted many workshops both in Australia and internationally.
Dr Nathan Zoanetti
Nathan Zoanetti is currently Research Director of the Psychometrics and Methodology Program at the Australian Council for Educational Research and before that he was Principal Psychometrician at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. He has previously held research positions at the Assessment Research Centre, University of Melbourne, including as Executive Officer of the NAP Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) Measurement Advisory Group, and more recently as an Honorary Senior Fellow.
With professional experience in academia, government and the not-for-profit sector, Nathan is an established leader in applied educational measurement and assessment research and service delivery. His work has spanned numerous education settings and industries including school education, medical education, higher education, and professional licensure and language testing. Nathan has an advanced knowledge of contemporary psychometric and statistical methodologies and issues and is recognised for his broad research interests, including technology-enabled assessment design and analysis, the application of teacher judgement to align measurement scales, and the intersection of machine learning and psychometrics.
Nathan is currently a member of the OECD PISA 2021 Creative Thinking Expert Group and a member of England’s Standards and Testing Agency Technical Advisory Group. He was awarded a PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2009.