I lead the Women in Trades project. Our team investigates the behavioural barriers and solutions to women’s recruitment in traditionally male-dominated trades, such as construction, engineering and electrotechnology. In the state of New South Wales, women make up only 9% of all apprentices, and 2% of qualified tradespeople in these industries. Our first research report has been published by our partners. The Women in Trades Promising Practice Review presents an overview of best practice in vocational training and employment in Australia and internationally. The issue of gender equity is a stru ..read more

I’ll be presenting my research on how institutions can protect public scholars from public abuse. Hosted by Cultures of Digital Hate, this online panel is free to attend. Date: Mon, 12 September 2022, 8:00PM-9:30PM AEST (11:00AM – 12:30PM BST) Register: online. About this event: (from the organisers) In this event, we challenge the positive framing of REF and impact to examine the conditions in which this labour is undertaken, given what we know about cultures of digital hate. We understand academia as a sector with visibility built in, that can both be understood through frameworks relevant t ..read more

I led a project where our team created an online cyber security training game. We used behavioural science to develop the game. I hired an intern who did a wonderful job building the prototype. Our team then contracted a great agency to work with us to enhance the game. Having an applied sociologist at the helm meant that accessibility and game design was developed with inclusion from inception. Cyber safety Our game gives people an opportunity to practice training on how to accurately report phishing emails. Phishing refers to malicious emails that try to trick people into clicking on links o ..read more

I am cross-posting public health research that I have co-led. In late 2020, many people were confused about how to correctly self-isolate after getting a COVID-19 test. Our team worked to stop people leaving self-isolation before getting a negative result. We tested a behavioural intervention using A multilingual handout, and ‘Teach-back’ instructions about self-isolation. Teach-back is an effective way to improve health comprehension. Clinicians follow a script. They then ask people to repeat key instructions. They also allow time for questions and explanation. Our intervention and survey w ..read more

Cross-posting research I’ve lead on increasing the promotion and retention of people with disability* within the New South Wales (NSW) public service. We undertook fieldwork to understand the behavioural barriers and solutions. We find that administrative hurdles and inadequate support are negatively impacting the career progression of people with disability. We can improve these outcomes by: 1) Using a feedback loop to increase professional development opportunities for staff with disability; 2) making it easier to implement workplace adjustments; and 3) providing managers with improved resou ..read more

In Episode 5 of our Race in Society series, Associate Professor Alana Lentin and I lead a panel exploring the impact of race, gender, and socioeconomics on COVID-19, through a lens of intersectionality. Writing in 1989, Professor Kimberle Crenshaw showed that industrial law in the USA treated racial and sexual discrimination as distinct experiences. She showed that Black women experience both racism and sexism simultaneously, and so the impact of each is compounded. Professor Patricia Hill Collins and other theorists have also shown that, without using this term specifically, people in the Glo ..read more

On 27 August 2021, in his maiden speech to the Peruvian Congress, Guido Bellido, Prime Minister of Peru, was heckled by his fellow politicians, and reprimanded by the President of Congress for giving an extended welcome in Quechua and Aimara. Quechua is the language of the Quechuan people, the largest Indigenous group in Peru. Aimara is the second largest Indigenous group. Bellido is Quechuan. He was elected as the Cusco representative for Congress on 29 July 2021. Cusco is a Quechuan-majority region, where citizens have a legal right to Quechuan language services, and ..read more

Vaccination, effective self-isolation, and adequate socioeconomic support are key public health measures that are proven to reduce the impact of COVID-19. Vaccination is safe,1  and scientifically shown to reduce death, hospitalisation, and severe health issues arising from COVID-19. Vaccination is currently available to everyone in Australia aged over 16; from 13 September 2021, it will be extended to 12 to 15 year olds. I’m very lucky, and thankful, to be fully vaccinated. Vaccination itself was quick, easy, and painless. Health staff delivered excellent service. In particular, the clin ..read more

Please join me and over 9,000 human rights organisations, lawyers, doctors, researchers and artists who have signed an open letter calling on the Australian Government to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake by at least 20,000 people, and expedite the resettlement of interpreters, guides and other personnel involved in Australia’s mission in Afghanistan. Sign the petition now. An excerpt of the open letter: Almost twenty years ago, in November 2001, Australia was one of the first nations to join the US-led intervention in Afghanistan that removed the Taliban. In the two decades following ..read more

In Episode 4 of our Race in Society series, Associate Professor Alana Lentin and I spoke with three health experts to unpack how racist ableism drives the management of lockdown and healthcare during the pandemic. Ableism is the discrimination of disabled people, based on the belief that able-bodied people (people without disability) are superior, and the taken-for-granted assumptions that able-bodied experiences are “natural,” “normal” and universal. Racist ableism describes how ableism intersects with racial discrimination (unfair treatment and lack of opportunities, due to ascribe ..read more