It’s been an impressive month for the Faculty, with four academics awarded Future Fellowships, three early career researchers awarded DECRAs and more.

FOUR FACULTY RESEARCHERS AWARDED 2021 FUTURE FELLOWSHIPS
In an incredible result for the Faculty of Arts, four of our researchers have been awarded 2021 Future Fellowships. While the national success rate for this scheme was 14.8%, the success rate for our Faculty was an impressive 50%.

Dr Jane Johnson from the Department of Philosophy was awarded $726,320 for the project ‘Rethinking animals in research: Developing a novel ethical framework’. This project aims to address the challenges with current approaches to animal ethics such as harms to research workers and animals, poor translation of results from animals to humans leading to ineffective treatments and poorly directed future research efforts.

Dr Kate Rossmanith from the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature was awarded $927,774 for the project ‘Seeking ‘Closure’ in Unsolved Homicide Cases’. The project aims to transform conceptual understandings of ‘closure’ by studying the experiences of bereaved families and frontline police confronting unsolved homicide. Results will lead to significantly improved communication between families and police, to the development of more effective support strategies, and will have social and cultural applications far and beyond the justice system.

Associate Professor Kristian Ruming from the School of Social Sciences was awarded $987,916 for the project ‘Universities as entrepreneurial urban actors’. This project aims to critically analyse the role of universities in shaping Australian cities.

Associate Professor Sandie Suchet-Pearson from the School of Social Sciences was awarded $978,680 for the project ‘Enabling Indigenous and Country-led understandings of sovereignty’. The project aims to transform understandings of sovereignty from a concept to a series of practices by which pluralistic authority is drawn from intimate human and non-human relationships.

FACULTY OF ARTS DECRA WINNERS SHARE MORE THAN $1M IN FUNDING
Three academics from the Faculty of Arts have had projects funded in the Australian Research Council’s latest Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) round.

Associate Professor Daniel Ghezelbash from the Law School was awarded $444,851 for his project ‘Fast-track Asylum Procedures: Balancing Fairness and Efficiency’. The project aims to identify if fast-track processing of asylum claims can be done in a way that is both fair and efficient.

Dr Douglas McConnell from the Department of Philosophy was awarded $343,772 for his project ‘Rewriting moral character and professional virtue’. This project aims to solve the philosophical problems of whether moral character motivates action and how it does so.

Finally, Dr Marnie Graham from the School of Social Sciences was awarded $453,505 for her project ‘Re/connecting People, Nature and Sustainable Futures via Indigenous tourism’. This project aims to identify how Australians might appropriately learn from and act on Indigenous knowledges for more sustainable futures. In total, Macquarie University was awarded nine DECRAs, which you can read about here.

ACADEMIC’S BOOK NOMINATED FOR ANOTHER PRIZE
Professor Joseph Pugliese from the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature has had his book Biopolitics of the More-Than-Human: Forensic Ecologies of Violence nominated for the UK’s Hart Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize for “the most outstanding piece of socio-legal scholarship published in 2020-21.” The book has already been nominated for the American Studies Association’s John Hope Franklin Publication Prize honouring “the most outstanding book published in American studies.”

$500K GRANT SUPPORTS NEW ALLIANCE BETWEEN UNIVERSITIES AND WESTERN SYDNEY HIGH SCHOOLS
As part of the NSW Government’s Collaboration and Innovation Fund, Macquarie University, UNSW Sydney and UTS have received $500K funding for their newly formed partnership, NSW Equity Consortium: Imagined Futures. The project is underway, seeking to build student and school capacities for accessing tertiary education and targeting Year 7-9 students from Greater Western Sydney high schools, which are under-represented in higher education.

At Macquarie, the collaborative project involves the Widening Participation Unit and academic staff from the School of Education. The team is currently working with Year 7 students from partner schools located in hotspot LGAs. The impact of the lockdown meant the team needed to pivot quickly to support teachers’ delivery of the program online. Macquarie students, engaged as Equity Ambassadors, are contributing via filmed panel interviews, Zoom Q&A sessions, and other creative engagements.

Dr Janet Dutton (Macquarie School of Education, Content Lead) says the Macquarie developed resources were designed to be engaging and structured while also flexible and easily tailored to online learning. “Our aim during this challenging time has been to listen carefully and support teachers in the way that best supports their needs; care of the partner schools’ teachers is central to our approach,” explains Janet.

Mr Francis Floresca, an English teacher at one of the partner schools Punchbowl Boys High School, adds “Macquarie University has provided us with the support we need. This includes the freedom to choose the way we modify work for our students and opportunities to engage in regular check-ins.”