Staff

Staff

Read about current and honorary staff at the Youth Research Collective. Please note names are listed in alphabetical order (by last name).

• CURRENT STAFF
  
  

  
  

  Natalie Calleja	Natalie Calleja has worked on a variety of research projects that aim to examine how education can meaningfully engage with young people. She is a postgraduate researcher at the Youth Research Collective, interested in thinking with young people about what sociomaterial interactions are shaping who they are becoming and their feelings of belonging. Natalie uses intersectionality, equity, and social change as critical lenses to consider how education can meaningfully engage with young people. She also teaches subjects at the Faculty of Education that examine sociology in education, national and global education programs and policies, and student wellbeing.
  Dave Camilleri	Dave Camilleri is a Teaching Specialist and researcher at The University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Education. He has worked with adolescents in a variety of contexts for the past 18 years. Despite leaving formal education early at 16, he worked as a secondary school teacher before completing a PhD investigating the relationships between engagement, creative ability, and classroom culture with a particular focus on high ability students who are disengaged from regular schooling. He was awarded the Dr Lawrie Shears Doctoral Scholarship in 2016 for outstanding PhD research. Dave’s current research looks at wellbeing and creativity in young people.
  Jenny Chesters	Jenny Chesters is an Associate Professor 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. Jenny is a member of The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) and a member of the International Sociological Association (ISA).
  Hernan Cuervo	Hernan Cuervo is a Professor in the Faculty of Education. His research interests are in the fields of sociology of youth, rural sociology, rural education and theory of justice. He is a Chief Investigator in the ARC projects “Life Patterns” and “Securing the Next Generation in Farming Careers”. He is currently the Academic Leader of the Youth Research Collective (YRC) academic group; and previously he was Associate Dean (Diversity & Inclusion, FoE). He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Youth Studies (2019-2022, Springer). Hernan is a co-editor of the book series 'Perspective on Children and Young People' (Springer) and an Associate Editor of The Australian Educational Researcher and the Australian and International Journal of Rural Education.
  Anne Farrelly	Anne Farrelly has worked as a researcher on a range of local, national and international projects developing wellbeing, respectful relationships and child safety curriculum, training educators in program delivery and evaluating implementation of trauma informed and gender-based violence prevention programs. Her research interests include critically reflecting on the work of practitioners across a range of professions in supporting children and young people’s right to agency and safety. Her teaching at the Faculty of Education reflects these interests exploring the conceptualisation of childhood, the ethics of family and gender and supporting pre-service teachers in critically reflecting on practice to support inclusion for all young people within education.
  Jun (Eric) Fu	Jun (Eric) Fu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Youth Research Collective. His research interests include digital citizenship, young people, media and digital literacy education, education mobility and international students. He also teaches several breadth subjects (undergraduate level) and subjects for Master students at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.
  Melyssa Fuqua	Melyssa Fuqua is a Melbourne Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her fellowship research explores how sporting clubs influence aspiration and participation of rural youth in tertiary education and work, and the clubs’ role in their wider community. Originally from Massachusetts, Melyssa was a P-12 teacher in rural Victoria for a decade before returning to higher education and research. She is a manager of the Rural Education Research Student Network connecting research students, early-career researchers, and experienced scholars; and hosts the annual International Emerging Rural Scholars Summit. Melyssa is on the editorial team of the Australian and International Journal of Rural Education.
  Annie Gowing	Annie Gowing coordinates the Master of Education program at The University of Melbourne and leads the Student Wellbeing Specialisation within that course. The ways in which student wellbeing is understood, implemented, monitored and evaluated in schools is a longstanding practice, policy and research focus and her PhD study was on school connectedness which, along with school climate, the teacher-student relationship, and the concepts of compassion and care in the school context and their inter-cultural understandings, are her key research interests.
  Natalie Ann Hendry	Natalie Ann Hendry is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education. Natalie investigates the relationships between digital media, health and education, focusing on youth, mental health, sexuality and finance. As a critical scholar, Natalie positions her work within media and communication studies, cultural studies, critical health, and sociology, through diverse methodologies including digital ethnography, group workshops and creative methods. In 2021, Natalie published her first book, tumblr, co-authored with Katrin Tiidenberg and Crystal Abidin. Before undertaking her PhD, Natalie was a teacher and consultant, with experience in community, secondary (health and humanities) and youth hospital-based education settings.
  Quentin Maire	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 explores the role of credentials, curriculum, and social class in the making of youth inequality. He is a comparativist, uses quantitative and qualitative methods, and seeks to historicise contemporary social phenomena.
  Charlotte McPherson	Charlotte McPherson joined the Youth Research Collective as a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2023. Her postdoctoral research explores working-class young people’s navigations of employment opportunities and relationships to community in rural areas of Victoria and Scotland. Charlotte is a qualitative youth scholar interested in understanding the lives of young people from their perspective. Her research expertise lies in how young people’s lives are shaped by social class and social change, and she is interested in young people’s relationships with place and sense of social justice. Charlotte serves on the editorial team for the Journal of Youth Studies.
  Suzanne Rice	Suzanne Rice is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education. She has been a researcher at the University of Melbourne since 2008. She has three research foci: supporting school students’ development of career knowledge and skills through better careers provision, building a better teacher workforce through understanding how to attract and retain excellent people in teaching, and ensuring national testing programs benefit students and teachers by reducing negative impacts. She has been widely published in prestigious journals such as Teachers and Teaching and Journal of Education Policy, and has led research projects worth over $4 million.
  Maddison Sideris	Maddison Sideris is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne, research assistant for the Life Patterns project and sessional tutor at Deakin University. Her PhD research explores how Australian youth are negotiating their intimate relationships in their transition to adulthood through digital practices and COVID-19. She completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours)/Laws in 2021 and was awarded First Class Honours for her thesis exploring how young women construct their identities on Instagram.
  Michelle Walter	Michelle Walter is a teaching specialist and lecturer in higher education at the Faculty of Education and centre for the Study of Higher Education at the university of Melbourne. She is a lived experience researcher focusing on feminism, mental illness, disability, help-seeking, stigma and the mental health of tertiary students. She is particularly interested in developing teaching methods to support tertiary student mental health and arts based, creative research methodologies with a specific focus on Autoethnography as a feminist research methodology.
  Nadishka Weerasuriya	Nadishka Weerasuriya is a PhD student, academic tutor and research assistant for the Life Patterns project. Her PhD examines the ways in which transnational young people negotiate identity and belonging in their everyday lives between cultures, looking specifically at the role of language in these processes. She is generally interested in research around the recognition and representation of young people from marginalised and/or peripheral social groups and communities. Nadishka also tutors in several breadth subjects, as well as for a range of subjects in the Master of Education.
  Johanna Wyn	Johanna Wyn is a Redmond Barry Professor, Faculty of Education. Johanna 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.
  Rosie Yasmin	Rosie Yasmin is a lecturer in the Youth Research Collective. Her research interests include education, wellbeing, social justice, capability and rights-based approaches, resilience, human rights, international development, gender, third sector, and mixed-methods and participatory research methodologies. She coordinates and teaches several Master level subjects at the Faculty of Education. She also taught Master level subjects at the School of Social & Political Sciences (SSPS), Faculty of Arts and breadth subjects (undergraduate level). She worked in academia in Bangladesh and in international NGOs.
  Hanyue Zhong	Hanyue Zhong is a PhD candidate. Her research interest is around rural education, education policy, and educational equity. Her PhD project is to investigate the enactment of education modernization policy in Chinese rural schools. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2166-2268

• HONORARY STAFF
  
  

  
  

  Helen Cahill	Helen Cahill is an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of education at the University of Melbourne.
  Bronwyn Davies	Bronwyn Davies is an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of education at the University of Melbourne.