Dr Cathy Fussell is an Australian Government public servant and academic. As a public servant, Cathy has over 20 years’ experience in policy and program delivery, and data analytics strategy and capability development. Her work currently focuses on using data for outcomes-driven policy delivery and adaptation. 

As an academic, Dr Fussell focuses on addressing the bias towards theorising power in its negative exercise, neglecting the positive. That is, the capacity to achieve shared outcomes. She is rethinking the concepts of power and value in light of complex systems theory and the system dynamics of ethical and effective governing. 

Cathy is a visiting fellow at ANU’s School of Cybernetics and a Sir Roland Wilson Foundation alumna and recent board member. She is an active champion of APS-academic partnerships.

Publications

• Fussell C (2025) Searching for the positive exercise of power, Journal of Political Power, https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2025.2538472
• Fussell C (2024) Realising the collective value of data by governing with rather than over [PhD Thesis], The Australian National University, Canberra.
• Fussell, C (2023) 'What a power with looks like and why we should choose it'. SocArXiv. Preprint available at https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/fky6t.
• Fussell, C 2023, 'Searching for a positive theory of power'. SocArXiv. Preprint. Available at: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/v8qh9
• Fussell, C 2023, 'Understanding value through Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphysics and ethics'. SocArXiv. Preprint. Available at: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/kt6f8
• Fussell, C 2023 'Three propositions for realising collective value'. SocArXiv. Preprint. Available at: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3pheu
• Fussell, C 2023, 'Why we struggle to realise the value of data: SocArXiv. Preprint. Available at https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/u8zcx
• Fussell, C 2022, ‘Four Data Discourses and Assemblage Forms: A Methodological Framework’, Preprint. Available at: osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/jvcqw.