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Image of Siddharth Shirodkar
Sir Roland Wilson Scholarship Graduated 2021

Dr

Siddharth Shirodkar

Indigenous Business Australia

The Australian National University

PhD title: Unlocking Indigenous entrepreneurial potential: A mixed methods study of the pathways and barriers to business for Indigenous Australians.

Dr Siddharth Shirodkar is the Principal Economist at Indigenous Business Australia. Siddharth has worked in Indigenous economic development since 2015, joining the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to work on Indigenous entrepreneurship. He has worked as an economist in the Australian Government for close to 15 years, including at the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the Treasury, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and with the former Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

Siddharth’s PhD research was on the pathways and barriers to Indigenous Australians starting a business. He has taken a mixed-methods approach to investigate factors that are limiting opportunities for potential Indigenous entrepreneurs to get into business, including the impact of racial bias. His study involves econometric analysis and ground-breaking qualitative techniques to identify Australia’s hidden entrepreneurial potential. Siddharth submitted his PhD thesis in January 2021, and received his doctorate in July 2021.

    Supervisor:
    Dr Boyd Hunter

    ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

    • Garton P, Sedgewick M, and Shirodkar S (2010) ‘Australia’s Current Account Deficit in a Global Imbalances Context’, Economic Round-up 2010, 1, The Treasury, Canberra.
    • Shirodkar S, Hunter B, and Foley D (2018) ‘Ongoing growth in the number of Indigenous Australians in business’. Working Paper 125, ANU Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Canberra.
    • Shirodkar S (2019) ‘Bias against Indigenous Australians: Implicit association test results for Australia’. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 22(3-4):3-34.
    • Shirodkar S and Hunter B (2019) ‘Factors underlying the likelihood of being in business for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians’, Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 22(1):5-28.
    • Shirodkar S, Hunter B and Foley D (2020) ‘A new method of estimating the number of Indigenous business owner-managers’. CSRM & SRC Methods paper, No. 2/2020.
    • Shirodkar S and Hunter B (2021) ‘Implicit biases and their effect on Indigenous business ownership’. Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 24(1):1-24.
    • Shirodkar S (2021) Unlocking Indigenous entrepreneurial potential: A mixed methods study of the pathways and barriers into business for Indigenous Australians [PhD Thesis], The Australian National University, Canberra.

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    Tristram Sainsbury
    Sir Roland Wilson Scholarship Graduated 2023

    Dr

    Tristram Sainsbury

    Department of Industry, Science and Resources

    The Australian National University

    PhD title: Essays in Empirical Policy Evaluation: COVID-19 fiscal policy and the early release of superannuation

    Tristram has worked in the Australian Treasury for close to a decade, alongside two years as Research Fellow and Project Director at the G20 Studies Centre at the Lowy Institute. His work has covered a range of tax, international economic and fiscal policy issues. He has  worked at Crawford School on behalf of the Australian Treasury and been a visiting scholar at both the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany and the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University.

    Tristram’s research will investigate the impact of Australia’s tax and transfer system over people’s lifetimes. He will use cross‑government investments in administrative data to focus on the extent of smoothing and rich-poor redistribution.

    Supervisor:
    Professor Robert Breunig
    • Sainsbury T (2015) US Global Economic Leadership: Responding to a Rising China, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney.
    • Wurf H and Sainsbury T (2016) Making the Most of the G20, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney.
    • Sainsbury T (2016) 'Do we need more economics in Australian economic diplomacy?' Australian Journal of International Affairs, 70(6): 613-624.
    • Sainsbury T (2023) Essays in Empirical Policy Evaluation: COVID-19 fiscal policy and the early release of superannuation [PhD thesis], The Australian National University, Canberra.
    Picture of Bec Salcole
    SRW Pat Turner Scholarship 2023

    Bec Salcole

    Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

    Charles Darwin University

    Master of Arts

    Bec is a proud Wiradjuri woman born and raised In Wagga Wagga NSW. Bec commenced her public service career in 2014, in service delivery at Services Australia. She joined the Department of Environment and Energy as a graduate in 2017 after completing a Bachelor of Environmental Science. She has also worked for the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, with a focus on improving Indigenous Engagement and Partnerships in the Murray-Darling Basin. 

    Bec aims to use the Master of Arts to gain a better understanding of Indigenous Engagement and Policy development in different contexts across Australia, and use these learnings to support the Australian Public Service to enhance Indigenous engagement practices.

    Matthew Smith
    Sir Roland Wilson Scholarship 2023

    Matthew Smith

    The Treasury

    The Australian National University

    PhD title: Distributional impacts of Australia's tax and transfer system over the lifetime: a more detailed approach drawing on richer administrative data

    Matt is a Director at the Treasury and has been a member of the public service since 2009. His work has primarily focused on policy analysis on Australia’s tax and transfer system including revenue forecasting and costing and distributional analysis of tax and transfer policies using microsimulation modelling. Matt’s analysis has contributed to Budget updates and the 2021 Intergenerational Report. He has also been involved in major model development work on Treasury’s CAPITA and MARIA microsimulation models.

    Matt’s research aims to use administrative data to build a dynamic microsimulation model of Australia’s tax and transfer system. This would deliver a durable tool for policy analysis that provides important insights on the sustainability and equity, both within and between generations, of personal tax and transfer policy settings. In doing so, it would build on the existing Australian toolkit of representative agent and cohort analysis to allow for the kinds of more granular and detailed distributional analysis to improve the debate around, and implementation of, public policy.

    Supervisor:
    Professor Robert Breunig

    Bastian, B, Smith, M, Cheong, B, Pineda, V, Stevenson, M, Hutchison, O, & Kluth, S 2017, ‘Development of Treasury's new model of Australian retirement incomes and assets: MARIA (No. 2017-02)’. Treasury Working Paper, The Treasury, Canberra.

    Stevenson, M, Ledda, D, Pineda, V, Smith, M, & Kluth, S 2017, ‘CAPITA - Treasury's microsimulation model of personal income tax and transfers (No. 2017-05)’. Treasury Working Paper, The Treasury, Canberra.

    Image of Sir Roland Wilson scholar Carrie Samuels
    Sir Roland Wilson Scholarship 2024

    Carrie Samuels

    Australian Bureau of Statistics

    The Australian National University

    PhD title: Maximising the value of linked data for population health research and policy formulation in Australia

    Carrie has worked at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) since 2010. Most recently, she was a Director in the Data Integration Services Branch, leading a team of data engineers to build, maintain and enhance the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA, formerly known as MADIP). In this role, Carrie oversaw significant expansion and enhancement of PLIDA to increase the frequency and timeliness of data updates and improve the usability of the data for researchers.

    Through her work at the ABS, Carrie developed an appreciation of some common challenges experienced by government and academic researchers working with data from PLIDA. This inspired the topic of Carrie’s PhD research in the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU, which aims to develop methods to identify cohorts of interest in integrated data assets such as PLIDA. Carrie hopes this work will assist government researchers to make better use of PLIDA for policy formulation and evaluation.

    Supervisor:
    Dr Jennifer Welsh
    Image of Sir Roland Wilson Pat Turner scholar Jami-Lee Saxon
    SRW Pat Turner Scholarship 2024

    Jami-Lee Saxon

    Services Australia

    Charles Darwin University

    Master of Public Policy

    Jami-Lee is a proud Biripi woman born and raised on Biripi country, NSW.

    She has been working for the Australian Public Service for 11 years – starting her career in Services Australia as an Indigenous apprentice. Shortly after finishing the apprenticeship, Jami-Lee commenced a Bachelor of Social Work and her commitment to service and her agency were recognised through being awarded an internal Indigenous scholarship. She was then successful in securing a place in the agency’s national graduate program and has been working on country, as a Services Australia Social Worker for the past four years.

    Jami-Lee is studying a Master of Public Policy through Charles Darwin University and has a passion for policies that apply to First Nations peoples. She is an essential agent of change who is committed to influencing the policies, programs and services that directly impact the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

    Penelope Sullivan
    Sir Roland Wilson Scholarship Graduated 2024

    Dr

    Penelope Sullivan

    Australian National University

    PhD title: The techniques and strategies governments use to influence one another in federal water management: lessons for Australia from the US and Europe

    Penny Sullivan was a Sir Roland Wilson scholar and PhD candidate at the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU. She had over ten years of experience working on water management in the Queensland and Australian public services. She worked on developing and implementing the controversial Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

    Her research focused on intergovernmental relations in federal water management, seeking to understand how state and federal governments pursue their objectives in water conflicts with each other. With the support of a Sir Roland Wilson scholarship she was able to conduct extensive fieldwork interviewing practitioners and participants for case studies in Spain and the United States, as well as in Australia.

    Supervisor:
    Associate Professor Keith Barney, Dr Daniel Connell
    Claire Sainsbury
    SRW Pat Turner Scholarship Graduated 2025

    Dr

    Claire Sainsbury

    Department of Education

    The Australian National University

    PhD title: The mismatch between rhetoric and action - A study into the Commonwealth's role in redressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational inequity

    Claire is a Torres Strait Islander (Maluilgal from the western islands) who grew up on Badu Island. She has a Bachelor of Education from James Cook University and started her career as a primary school teacher. Motivated by the drive to improve the educational outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students on a large scale, she took up the opportunity to move to Canberra to work in the Australian Public Service (APS). Throughout her APS career, Claire has undertaken various leadership, policy, coordination and program management roles, across a range of agencies, including the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, the Australian Public Service Commission, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the National Indigenous Australians Agency.

    Education has been an area of significant focus throughout Claire’s career. She has worked predominantly on national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education policy and managed a range of flagship government initiatives and programs aimed at improving education outcomes. She has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Canberra and recently completed her PhD at the Australian National University, under a Sir Roland Wilson Pat Turner scholarship. Claire’s thesis (currently under examination) focused on the Commonwealth’s role in redressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational inequity.

    Claire is a senior executive at the Commonwealth Department of Education and leads the Research Policy and Programs branch. Her branch aims to ensure that Australian researchers have access to cutting edge national research infrastructure and that the research system is meeting the current and future needs of research students and the research sector.

    Supervisor:
    Professor Nicholas Biddle
     
    The Sir Roland Wilson Foundation is a partnership between The Australian National University, Charles Darwin University and the Australian Public Service.