Meet our researchers
- Professor Alan Mayne
- Professor Peter Buckskin
- Ms Jillian Miller
- Dr Brenda Croft
- Associate Professor Dr Irene Watson
- Dr Tangi Steen
- Dr Alice Healy
- Ms Frances Wyld
- Mr Syd Sparrow
- Dr Peter Gale
- Ms Joy Makepeace
- Ms Jasmine Valadian
- Mr Jared Thomas
Professor Alan Mayne
Portfolio Leader: Research & Research Education; Head of School; Research SA Chair and Professor of Social History and Public Policy in the Hawke Research Institute, a cross-disciplinary humanities and social sciences research institute at the University of South Australia.
Professor Mayne's research focuses on social life and social policy in Australia, Britain, North America, and South Asia. His research interests and publications range across Australian immigration and settlement policy, cultural heritage interpretation and cultural tourism, historical archaeology, 'slums' and urban 'renewal' in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain, the United States and Australia, urban social policy in contemporary India, and community formation and resilience in regional Australia.
Contact Professor Mayne from his staff home page
Professor Peter Buckskin
Dean. David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research. Board of Directors - National Congress for Australia's First Peoples.
Professor Buckskin has been a teacher and professional bureaucrat for
over thirty years. His roles have included working as a classroom
teacher in Western Australia and South Australia, Chair of the South
Australian Aboriginal Education Consultative Committee, Ministerial
Adviser, Superintendent of Schools, and a Senior Executive at both State
and Federal level. For over a decade he worked as an officer in the
Commonwealth's Senior Executive Service, where he occupied a number of
strategic positions in the portfolios of Aboriginal Affairs, Employment,
Education and Training. Professor Buckskin was also privileged to served
one term as a Commissioner of the
Commissioner of the Australian Commission to UNESCO.
In recognition of his contribution to Aboriginal Education Professor Buckskin has received numerous awards and honours and in May 2010 commenced his prestigious appointment on the Board of Directors of the National Congress for Australia's First Peoples.
Professor Buckskin's research interests focus on Aboriginal Knowledges; Race and Racism; International Perspectives and Perceptions; Reconciliation; Aboriginal Education and Public Policy
Contact Professor Buckskin from his staff home page
Ms Jillian Miller
Co-ordinator Indigenous Student Services
Ms Miller is a Mirning woman with family ties to the West Coast of South Australia. In 2006, she accepted a position at the University of South Australia as Coordinator Indigenous Student Services after 37 years employment with DECS. She was invited by the Vice Chancellor at the time to be the Indigenous member of the University Council in 2002 and remained a member of council until her employment within the university in 2006. Ms Miller also chaired the University Indigenous Education and Research Advisory Committee.
In her previous role as Superintendent Aboriginal Education she had state wide responsibility for Aboriginal Education in South Australia from 2000 -2005. In that role she chaired DECS committees and was a member of the National MCEETYA Task Force on Indigenous Education and the inaugural chairperson of the Senior Officers Nation Network Indigenous Education (SONNIE).
Ms Miller's main research interest is the retention and success of Indigenous students within education systems and Indigenous employment and presence within schooling sectors and the academy. In 2007 she was awarded two research projects by Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) in response to recommendations from Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Committee (IHEAC):
Establishing good practice models of leadership which focus on professional development of academic and general staff and building and sustaining Indigenous participation, retention and success in higher education and
A Study of the first year experiences of Indigenous students at Australian universities
Contact with Ms Miller can be made from her staff home page
Dr Brenda Croft
Lecturer: Indigenous, Arts, Cultures & Design; Aboriginal Cultures; Aboriginal Futures; Indigenous Design Perspectives
Dr Croft is a descendant of the Gurindji and Mudpurra Peoples of the Daguragu/Limbunya/Kalkaringi region of the Northern Territory of Australia. She has been an exhibiting artist since the mid 1980s, and has worked in Indigenous art and cultural organizations since 1987. From 1999 - early 2009 she worked as a senior curator of Indigenous art and culture at state and federal art museums and in March 2009 returned to academic teaching, relocating to Adelaide to commence at UniSA. Prior to this Dr Croft worked at the Canberra School of Art (1998) and Tranby Aboriginal College, Sydney (1992). She has also presented guest lectures at national and international institutions since 1990.
Dr Croft's Research interests focus on contemporary Indigenous art and
culture; International Indigenous art and culture; Indigenous
photo-media and new media and film
Contact with Dr Croft can be made from her
staff home page
Associate Professor Dr Irene Watson
Co-ordinator Law and Land, Minor Thesis 1 & 2 (Masters of Aboriginal Studies) and Indigenous Philosophy:Contesting Knowledge in the Social Sciences.
Associate Professor Watson belongs to the Tanganekald and Meintangk peoples whose country lies across the Coorong and the south east of South Australia. In colonial times these languages, peoples and lands became more commonly known as Ngarrindjeri. She has worked as a legal practitioner and also been a member of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement SA from 1973-2005. As an academic she has taught in all three South Australian universities from 1989 until current. Associate Professor Watson has also worked internationally at the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations and has extensive experience working on questions of international law and Aboriginal peoples. Prior to taking up her current position in the David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research, she was a research fellow with the University of Sydney Law School.
Associate Professor Watson's research interests focus on Aboriginal Peoples and Domestic/International Laws; Aboriginal Knowledges; Critical Legal Theory, Feminist Theory and Native Title.
Contact Associate Professor Watson from her staff home page
Dr Tangi Steen
Portfolio Leader: Teaching & Learning and Lecturer in Preparing for Professional Practice and Hons Thesis 1&2.
Dr Steen is a Polynesian woman from the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific and a community radio broadcaster with the Tongan Community Radio of SA Inc in the ethnic radio station 5EBI 103.1FM. Her academic interest lies in Information Technology (IT) education and its uses in learning and research. Her PhD research focused on the problem solving strategies that students use when they encounter difficulties in IT. These strategies not only depend on students' level of IT competencies but also on a number of social and cultural factors which influence students learning of IT.
Dr Steen is also interested in cultural studies of culturally and linguistically diverse people of Australia and that of the world's indigenous people. In particular, the changing social constructions of themselves as minority groups and their levels of participation in the social, political and economic processes that impact their lives.
Dr Steen's research interests focus on the impact of Information Technology on education and training of Indigenous peoples; factors which influence the use of Information Technology in tertiary (mainly university) learning; social diffusion of Information Technology and its impact on traditional societies; representations of Indigenous knowledge in the world wide web and community radios and its role in community building.
Contact Dr Steen from her staff home page
Dr Alice Healy
Lecturer: Australian Politics and Power, Australia Imagined :Identity and Diversity in Australian Film and Literature and Colonial Experiment: Australian History 1788 -1918.
Dr Healy's research interests focus on Indigenous Literature and Cinema; Australian Literature and Cinema; Film adaptation; Translation Studies, especially between artistic media; Reception and Reader Response Theory; Screen theory; Cultural theory; History of visuality, gaze theories and visual technology; Australian History and Politics; Australian Literature Education; Cross-cultural collaboration in education. Indigenous Studies in Tertiary Education.
Contact Dr Healy from her staff home page
Ms Frances Wyld
Lecturer: Aboriginal People, History and Colonialism, Being and Belonging and Aboriginal Research Methods and Ethics. Program Director: Postgraduate Programs.
Ms Wyld is a descendant of the Martu People in Western Australia. Her PhD studies focus on the story of Indigenous Storywork in academia.
Ms Wyld's research interests focus on Indigenous Education ; Access and Equity for Indigenous People ;Indigenous Epistemologies; Learning Pathways
Contact Ms Wyld from her staff home page
Mr Syd Sparrow
Lecturer: Comparative Indigenous Studies, Aboriginal Cultures and Caring for Country
Mr Sparrow's research interests focus on Criminal Justice and Juvenile Justice; Cultural awareness, Human Rights and Social Justice, Aboriginal languages, Governance matters as the relate to Aboriginal communities, Aboriginal business entrepreneurship, Bush plants and medicines
Contact Mr Sparrow from his staff home page
Dr Peter Gale
Lecturer: Identity and Representation; Directed Literature Review H, Research Planning and Presentation and Australian Society and Cultures.
Dr Peter Gale teaches various undergraduate and postgraduate courses on racism, Australian history, and politics. He has published and presented many articles and papers both nationally and internationally on a range of topics, including racism, Indigenous education, reconciliation, and the media
Dr Gale's research interests focus on Sociology - Australian Studies, Sociology of race and ethnicity, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Nationalism and Racism, Aboriginal Studies
Contact Dr Gale from his staff home page
Ms Joy Makepeace
Academic Adviser: Education (Primary / Middle), Adult vocational, Biodiversity and Environmental studies, Engineering, Computer Information Science and Sports and Recreation Management
Ms Makepeace is a descendant of the Kamilaroi people from Northern New
South Wales and has a varied academic and professional background
covering a diverse area of studies ranging from Applied Science,
Education and Social Sciences. Her teaching interests cover
Environmental and Conservation Issues; Aboriginal Studies (particularly
Stolen Generations) and Indigenous Health & Healing
Ms Makepeace's research interests focus on Indigenous Higher Education,
Indigenous Health and the Stolen Generations
Contact Ms Makepeace from her staff home page
Ms Jasmine Valadian
Lecturer: Contemporary Aboriginal Issues; Cultural Perspectives on Health.
Ms Valadian;s research interests focus on Aboriginal Health Well Being. She is currently leading an Aboriginal Health research project entitled 'Eat Well Be Active'.
Contact Ms Valadian from her staff home page
Mr Jared Thomas
Lecturer: Communication Culture and Indigenous Australians.
An accomplished writer, Mr Thomas lectures in art, communication and literature. Mr Thomas's play 'Flash Red Ford' toured Uganda and Kenya in 1999 and his play 'Love, Land and Money' featured during the 2002 Adelaide Fringe Festival. His novel 'Sweet Guy' was shortlisted for the 2009 South Australian People's Choice Awards for Literature. Mentored by acclaimed Jamaican writer Olive Senior, BBC Radio featured a 30min radio documentary about his writing of 'Calypso Summers' in 2009.
Mr Thomas's research interests focus on Aboriginal literacy development
and the creation of texts for young adult readers. Mr Thomas has also a
keen interest in
sustainability projects connected to land belonging to the Nukunu
Peoples Council in the Southern Flinders Ranges.
Contact Mr Thomas from his staff home page