Social and public policy supervisors

Senior Research Fellow Jackie Gould

I am interested in supervising PhD topics which explore the following issues:

• Protected area and fisheries governance: improving models of collaboration between governments and Indigenous Sea Country Managers to better recognise Indigenous modes of decision making and knowledge authority

• Knowledge mapping: supporting Indigenous knowledge authorities to create resources which articulate the multidimensional values of their Sea Country, which they can utilise when navigating complex cross-cultural knowledge authority domains

Associate Professor Linda Ford

Associate Professor Payi Linda Ford is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Northern Institute. Her knowledge, expertise and research focus on Indigenous issues and her work contributes to understanding locally, nationally and internationally.

Research interests:

• Indigenous knowledge, and ecological knowledge
• Indigenous languages
• Indigenous Women’s Business
• Indigenous community and enterprise development, early childhood, and land management
• Indigenous higher education post-colonialism
• Law Indigenous Studies

Associate Professor Andrew Taylor

Associate professor Andrew Taylor is a Senior Research Fellow at the Northern Institute at CDU. Andrew researches the causes and consequences of population change for the Northern Territory of Australia and northern regions more broadly.

Research interests:

• impacts from population changes in northern and sparsely settled areas
• population projections
• indigenous populations and changing demography
• policy implications for population change at communities.

Professor Steven Bird

Professor Steven Bird’s research with Charles Darwin University’s Northern Institute is driven by the question of how to create a world that sustains its languages.

Research interests:

• language maintenance and revitalisation
• language documentation and description
• participatory design
• computational linguistics
• digital archives.

Associate Professor Pascal Tremblay

Associate professor Pascal is an economist undertaking research connected to Northern Australia’s development.

Research interests:

• economic analysis
• tourism business and marketing
• evaluation and assessment of policies and strategies aiming to enhance economic capabilities in northern Australia and address workforce challenges, including surrounding Aboriginal communities.

Associate Professor Kerstin Zander

Kerstin is an environmental economist with a background in agricultural science. Kerstin's research looks at the many relationships between humans and nature with a focus on quantitative research and econometric models.

Research interests:

• human wellbeing
• sustainability
• climate change
• farming
• adaption strategies
• economics.

Professor Ruth Wallace

Professor Ruth Wallace is the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Arts and Society.

Research interests:

• workforce development in regional and marginalised areas
• policy implementation in regional areas
• regional development and growth in remote areas
• marginalised learners and access to knowledge systems
• Aboriginal enterprise development in remote areas.

Senior Research Fellow Michaela Spencer

Michaela is a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Northern Institute. Her background is in environmental science, sociology, geography and Science and Technology Studies.

Research Interests:

• Contemporary practices of knowledge and governance
• Contemporary environmental politics
• Indigenous research development
• Collaborative services design
• Ethnography
•   Science and Technology Studies

Associate Professor Anne Lowell

Anne Lowell is a Principal Research Fellow in the Northern Institute and specialises in collaborative qualitative research and community education with remote Aboriginal communities.

Research Interests:

• intercultural communication
• Indigenous health and early childhood
• culturally responsive policy and practice
• Indigenous culture and linguistics.

Dr Deepika Mathur

Dr Deepika Mathur is a Research Fellow based at the Alice Springs campus. Her area of research is examining ways regional towns can be made more sustainable and healthy, through the built environment.

Research interests:

• construction waste management
• waste from solar energy systems
• sustainable architecture

Dr Tracy Woodroffe

Dr Tracy Woodroffe is a Lecturer and Course Coordinator in the College of Indigenous Futures, Arts & Society. She welcomes inquiries from prospective Master by Research and PhD students for supervision in her areas of interest.

Research Interests:

• Indigenous education and leadership
• knowledge systems
• classroom practice and assessment
• teacher education

Professor Michael Christie

Michael is a Principal Researcher with Northern Institute and heads the Contemporary Indigenous Governance and Knowledge Systems research team. Michael has lived in and worked with Yolŋu communities for over 40 years.

Research Interests:

• Yolngu languages and culture
• Yolngu philosophy and education
• transdisciplinary and Indigenous research

Professor Helen Verran

Over a long career in academia I have helped many research students formulate and chase down their puzzles into a thesis. For me supervision of graduate students is the most important and certainly the most rewarding aspect of a career in academia.

Research interests:

• policy work from the ground up
• museum studies
• experiential philosophy
• ethnographic methods
• inquiry into language use in context