Faculty of Arts academics have been widely recognised this month with successful ARC Discovery Projects, appointments to the ARC College of Experts, four successful Macquarie Research Acceleration Scheme outcomes, academic promotions, and a finalist in the Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Awards.

GRANTS

ARC Discovery Projects (DP24)

Professor Mark Alfano (Department of Philosophy) and Professor Colin Klein (Australian National University) have received  $478,013 in funding for the project 'Trust and Distrust in Social Epistemic Networks'. This project aims to discover critically-needed understandings of the social causes and consequences of ‘fake news’. It will do this by investigating and mapping the relationship between ‘epistemic vices’ and people’s acceptance of misinformation and disinformation (e.g. conspiracy theories). It will bring together approaches from experimental philosophy, natural language processing, social network analysis, and normative reflection to provide new insights regarding distrust and intellectual vice, thus significantly advancing knowledge of the ‘dark side’ of social epistemology. Results will lead to urgently required guidance regarding the features of social networks that exacerbate or buffer against the manifestation of these vices.

Professor Bronwen Neil (Department of History & Archaeology), Dr Amelia Brown (UQ), Dr Estelle Strazdins (University of Newcastle) and Dr Ryan Strickler (Australian National University) have received $230,368 in funding for the project 'Images of power in the Roman Empire: Mass media and the cult of Emperors'. Contemporary leaders understand the power of an image to influence public opinion, but are they following a path well-trodden by Roman emperors? This project aims to illuminate the role that mass media and images played in securing and sustaining imperial power during the Later Roman empire from the Flavians to the Theodosians (69-450 CE). The comparison of coins, statues and monuments will shed new light on the dynamic ways that popular media were used to mediate between emperors, their officials, provincial elites and the wider populace, and show how leaders used mass media in the Roman world. Social and cultural benefits include a better understanding of the ways that leaders today handle such media to influence public opinion.

Macquarie Research Acceleration Scheme (MQRAS) 2023 outcomes

Associate Professor Mark Alfano (Department of Philosophy) was awarded $50,000 in funding for the project ‘Investigating the Mandevillean virtue of distrustfulness’. In Australia and globally, we face a crisis of distrust in institutions and experts. Meanwhile, institutions and experts are sometimes mistaken, and sometimes systematically so. Thus, not only trust but also dissent, and the distrusting disposition that leads people to dissent, might be positively valuable. This project will conduct a pre-registered cross-cultural study of the value of distrust and dissent for group inquiry in six countries.

Professor Linda Harrison, Dr Rebecca Andrews, Associate Professor Fay Hadley, Professor Sheila Degotardi, Professor Sandie Wong, Dr Belinda Davis, Professor Manjula Waniganayake and Dr Loraine Fordham (Macquarie School of Education) have been awarded $49,735 in funding for the project ‘Development of a mentoring program for early childhood education educators to deliver the Supporting Children’s Participation in Early Childhood Education (SPiECE) intervention’. This project is a new collaboration that builds on the proven success of two externally-funded research projects undertaken by the team: SPiECE Professional Learning & Support Intervention and Mentoring for New Early Childhood Teachers. Its aims align with government-identified challenges for achieving equitable access to early childhood education (ECE) for disadvantaged and vulnerable children. The SPiECE intervention applies locally meaningful, strength-based strategies and initiatives to support educators to identify and address barriers to families’ and children’s engagement and attendance at ECE.

Dr Consuelo Martinez Reyes (MCCALL) has received $29,616 in funding for the project ‘Affective Decolonization: The Role of Spanish Caribbean Women in the Development of Contemporary National Discourses’. This project aims to examine specific ways in which discourses around female-centred affective ties influence contemporary literary, artistic, cinematographic, and activism movements in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. It is significant in its focus on “affective investment” as a decolonial strategy, which enables us to contrast how, on the one hand, the responsibility of caring for citizens is implicitly handed down from central governments to community groups while, on the other, this implies a symbolic loss of governmental power through the emotional connections among those affected.

Dr Tamika Worrell and Noeleen Lumby (Department of Indigenous Studies) have received $49,894 in funding for the project ‘Indigenous Literary Studies in Higher Education: Exploring the Australian context and learning from global relatives’. There is currently little known about the texts which are included in tertiary literary studies classrooms and that also include Indigenous perspectives. This project has two distinct aims; to understand the ways academics make choices to include texts, and to explore the ways Indigenous students feel represented in university English and Literary studies classrooms. Through student voice, academics can be guided to embed Indigenous perspectives through texts.

Clean Energy Council Scholarship

Dr Madeline Taylor (Macquarie Law School) is a recipient of the 2023 Chloe Munro Scholarship for Transformational Leadership from the Clean Energy Council. Now in its third year, the Chloe Munro Scholarship for Transformational Leadership focuses on supporting women who are emerging leaders in the fields of clean energy, energy management and carbon abatement.

Japan foundation grant

Dr Lavina Lee (Department of Security Studies and Criminology) has received $30,000 in funding from the Japan Foundation for the project ‘Japan-Australia cooperation and democracy support in Southeast Asia and the Pacific’. This research project aims to examine the similarities and differences in the approach of Australia and Japan to supporting democracy within their aid programs, and how both countries can work together to jointly embed democracy support within their aid programs as part of their overall strategies to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Hort Innovation Grant Success

Associate Professor Andrew McGregor, Dr Nick Harrigan, Dr Hangyoung Lee, Professor Greg Downey (School of Social Sciences) and Professor Phil Taylor (Faculty of Science and Engineering) are successful partners on a $4 million CSIRO project funded by Hort Innovation titled ‘Landscape scale approach to improve Australian horticultural preparedness and resilience to agri-pest challenges’.

AWARDS

Dr Gabrielle Oslington (School of Education) has received a Highly Commended recognition for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools at the 2023 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science. The award was presented in the Shine Dome (Australian Academy of Science) at the Australian National University on 17 October 2023. Dr Oslington joined Macquarie University as a PhD student in 2016 looking to further explore and understand the mathematical development of young primary school students. Under the guidance of her supervisor, Honorary Professor Joanne Mulligan, Dr Oslington has conducted several research projects exploring new ways of assessing mathematical ability at Arden Anglican School, where she currently teaches. Dr Oslington and Honorary Professor Mulligan are currently working on an ARC Discovery Project focussed on spatial reasoning.

ACHIEVEMENTS

ARC College of Experts

Professor Bronwen Neil (Department of History and Archaeology) and Professor Katie Barclay (soon to be joining the Department of History and Archaeology as an ARC Future Fellow) have been successfully nominated to become members of the ARC College of Experts. The Australian Research Council engages a College of Experts to play a key role in identifying research excellence in order to support the advancement of knowledge and contribute to national innovation.  Its members are experts of international standing drawn from the Australian research community: from higher education, industry and public sector research organisations.

Academic promotions

Congratulations to the following Faculty of Arts academics who have been successful in their application for promotion:

Level B:

Diana Tan (Macquarie School of Education)

Level C:

Rebecca Sheehan (Department of History and Archaeology)

Karin Sowada (Department of History and Archaeology)

Hua-Chen Wang (School of Education)

Constantinos Yiallourides (Macquarie Law School)

Tamika Worrell (Department of Indigenous Studies)

Level D:

Jumana Bayeh (School of Social Sciences)

Harry Blatterer (School of Social Sciences)

Tobia Fattore (School of Social Sciences)

Sung-Young Kim (School of Social Sciences)

Jonathan Symons (School of Social Sciences)

Maryam Khalid (School of Social Sciences)

Emilia Djonov (School of Education)

Anne Forbes (School of Education)

Leigh Boucher (Department of History and Archaeology)

Peter Edwell (Department of History and Archaeology)

Doron Goldbarsht (Macquarie Law School)

Rita Matulionyte (Macquarie Law School)

Shireen Morris (Macquarie Law School)

Level E:

Donna Houston (School of Social Sciences)

Kate Lloyd (School of Social Sciences)

Andrew McGregor (School of Social Sciences)

Fay Hadley (School of Education)

Robert Sinnerbrink (Department of Philosophy)

Women in Law Awards Finalist

Dr Madeline Taylor (Macquarie Law School) has been named as a finalist in the Academic/Researcher of the Year category of the Lawyer’s Weekly Women in Law Awards 2023. The Women in Law Awards is the most highly regarded awards program across Australia and the benchmark for excellence, recognising exceptional women in the Australian legal industry. This prestigious national awards program presents an exceptional opportunity for leading women to showcase their achievements and celebrate the recognition they deserve. Winners of the Women in Law Awards 2023 will be announced on Thursday 23 November 2023 at Crown Melbourne.