Talia’s PhD explores how the education system engages in reconciliation at the policy, school and classroom levels as well as through the perspectives of children. Through a multi-disciplinary ethnographic inquiry into the everyday policies and practices in two urban primary schools on Ngunnawal Country, in the ACT education jurisdiction, the study responded to a gap in understanding how, why and for whom reconciliation is (re)constructed. The findings have implications for how individuals, organisations and the nation understand and engage with reconciliation beyond the education system.  They have been adapted to professional development for educators and Commonwealth and State/Territory public policy makers; university courses; and individual and organisational change evaluation frameworks on addressing intersectionality, anti-racism, and reconciliation.

Talia has been employed by the Department of Social Services (DSS) and then the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet since 2002 in various policy, implementation (including community engagement) and organisational culture (learning and development) roles. Talia is currently the National Strategic Partnership and Research Manager at First Peoples Disability Network, a human rights organisation. Previous to this she was the DSS Executive Director First Nations disability policy, where she established a national policy, research and data agenda in partnership with peak organisations, community and research partners. Since completing her PhD, she has also held research fellowships and teaching positions in the ANU College of Arts and Social Science, has been a Chief Investigator on intercultural understanding research and evaluation projects, and has co-designed and delivered Indigenous Affairs, Policy and intercultural capability professional development and training packages within the APS. During her scholarship, Talia was a visiting scholar at Queens University, Belfast (2015) and Victoria University, Wellington (2019) where she maintains strong research and policy collaborations.

Suzanne’s PhD examined how state and non-state actors participate in the protection of citizens abroad and why. It included in-depth studies of Australia, Germany and Mexico’s consular and protection frameworks and practice.

Suzanne is a Director in the International Legal Practice Group in the Legal Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She has led the International Law Section, the International Law Advising and Treaties Section and the Sea Law and Antarctica Section. Suzanne was named Woman Lawyer of the Year for Government by the ACT Women Lawyers Association in 2018. She is a Visiting Government Fellow at the University of Melbourne Law School and has taught international law at ANU. She completed her LLM specialising in public international law at University College London and her LLB at the University of Western Australia.

View Lyndon's scholarship summary poster.

Lyndon has nearly 20 years’ experience as an applied survey statistician at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and has an excellent sense of the needs and pressures facing a statistical organisation. In recent years, he has driven initiatives at the ABS to develop new methods for using administrative data to produce more efficient statistics.

The increasing availability of large datasets promises to provide significant benefits for policy and decision making, however large datasets can contain inherent flaws. Through his PhD research, Lyndon aims to improve the way we harness and use externally sourced datasets alongside sample surveys to produce statistics that provide reliable conclusions.