Research Team
Research Team
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Redmond Barry Professor, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne
Johanna.Wyn@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile | Google Scholar
Johanna Wyn is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and the Academy of Social Sciences, UK. She leads the ARC funded Life Patterns longitudinal research program. Her research explores how young people navigate their lives in a changing world, with a focus on the areas of transition, gender, well-being and inequality. Wyn’s work recognises that young people, as active citizens and cultural creators, shape and contest the nature of youth.
Research Interests: youth, gender, transitions, longitudinal research, inequality
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Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne
Helen.Cahill@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile
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Professor in Sociology, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Dan.Woodman@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile
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Professor, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne
Hernan.Cuervo@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile | Google Scholar
Hernán Cuervo is an Professor in the Faculty of Education. His research interests are located in the fields of sociology of youth, youth transitions, rural education and theory of justice. Hernán’s research program is built around the project of addressing equity and social justice for young people, with a particular focus on rural spaces. In over a hundred publications and presentations, he has contributed to academic debates on youth transitions, with a particular attention to the intersection of ideas and practices of aspirations and belonging for rural youth, and on the application of theory of justice to the experiences of rural students, teachers and schools. Hernán is past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Youth Studies (Springer). His latest books are: ‘Thinking about Belonging in Youth Studies’ (w/ A. Harris & J. Wyn, 2021, Palgrave); and 'Youth, Inequality and Social Change in the Global South' (w/ A. Miranda, 2019, Springer).
Research Interests: youth transitions, rural youth, belonging, theory of justice, longitudinal studies
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Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne
Jenny.Chesters@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile | Google Scholar
Dr Jenny Chesters is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education. Her research interests include inequality in educational attainment and transitions between education and employment throughout the life course. Her publications include peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters reporting the results of quantitative data analysis. Her teaching includes research methodologies, and she coordinates the capstone projects of Master of Education students
Research Interests: inequality in educational attainment, transitions between education and employment throughout the life course, social stratification, international comparative research
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Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle
Julia.Cook@newcastle.edu.au | University of Newcastle Profile | Google Scholar | X (formerly Twitter)
Dr Julia Cook is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research interests include the sociology of youth, time and housing, and the intersections of each of these topics and economic sociology. Her most recent research addresses young adults’ pathways into home ownership; regional, rural and remote tertiary students’ experiences of housing after relocating to pursue their studies; and young adults’ navigation of debt and financial assistance, with a particular focus on small amount credit contracts and buy now pay later financial products. She recently published her first book Imagined Futures: Hope, Risk and Uncertainty (Palgrave, 2018). She is co-director of the Newcastle Youth Studies Network and is on the editorial boards of the journals Time & Society and Journal of Applied Youth Studies.
Research Interests: youth, housing, intergenerational relationships, time, interpersonal financial relationships
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Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne
Quentin.Maire@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile | Google Scholar | Bluesky
Quentin Maire is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education working on the ARC-funded Life Patterns project. Quentin is a sociologist researching schooling, education and young people, with a particular focus on social inequalities. He is a comparativist, uses quantitative and qualitative methods, and seeks to historicise contemporary social phenomena. He published his first monograph ‘Credential Market: Mass Schooling, Academic Power and the International Baccalaureate Diploma’ with Springer in 2021.
Research Interests: sociology of education, inequality, youth studies, comparative and international research, citizenship
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Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne
Eric.Fu@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile | Google Scholar | X (formerly Twitter)
Dr Fu joined the Life Patterns longitudinal research project in 2018. He has expertise in young people’s everyday use of digital media, young people’s digital identities and citizenship, and media and digital literacy education. He has published in journals and edited book collections in the field of youth studies and citizenship education.
Research Interests: young people and digital media and citizenship, media and digital literacy education
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Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne
fiona.druitt@unimelb.edu.au | University of Melbourne Profile
Fiona Druitt joined the Life Patterns team as a Research Fellow in 2024. In addition to holding a PhD in the humanities and social sciences, Fiona also holds a double degree with honours in science, specialising in mathematics and physics. Fiona’s research employs critical, historical, qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and explores novel ways to open research methods and modern disciplines onto one another. Fiona’s Life Patterns research currently asks how neoliberalism (as a project of modernity) and post-industrial economies shape the livelihoods and sociality of young Australians over time.
Research Interests: youth studies, cultural studies, science and technology studies, critical theory and modern science
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Professor, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
rachel.brooks@education.ox.ac.uk | University of Oxford Profile | Google Scholar | Bluesky
Rachel is Professor of Higher Education at Linacre College, University of Oxford, UK, an executive editor of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, and co-editor of the ‘Research into Higher Education’ book series, published by Routledge. She has published widely on numerous topics in the sociology of higher education, including international student mobility, student politics, and the experiences of students with caring responsibilities. She is currently leading a large Economic and Social Research Council-funded project (‘Student and Politics’) that is exploring whether higher education politicises today's students. Her recent books include: Constructing the Higher Education Student (with A. Gupta, S. Jayadeva, A. Lainio and P. Lažetić); Reimagining the Higher Education Student (with S. O’Shea); Education and Society: Places, Policies Processes; Materialities and Mobilities in Education (with J. Waters); and Sharing Care: Equal and Primary Caregiver Fathers and Early Years Parenting (with P. Hodkinson).
Research Interests: sociology of education (particularly higher education), youth studies, sociology of the family
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Emeritus Professor, The University of Milan-Bicocca
carmen.leccardi@unimib.it | University of Milan-Bicocca Profile
Carmen Leccardi is a Professor of Cultural Sociology and director of the PhD program in Applied Sociology and Methodology of Social Research at the University of Milan-Bicocca. From 2013 to 2015 she was President of the European Sociological Association. She was President of the European Sociological Association between 2015 and 2017. Her most recent book A New Individualism? Individualization, Subjectivity and Social Bonds, an edited collection in 2017.
Research Interests: social time, gender and generations, culture models and processes of cultural and social change, qualitative research methods–hermeneutical approaches