Advisory Board

Professor Harlene Hayne is Vice-Chancellor of Curtin University. Prior to this appointment, she was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Otago in New Zealand. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and of the Association for Psychological Science. In 2009, she was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to scientific and medical research.

Professor Hayne conducts research in the areas of memory development and adolescent risk taking. She is an Associate Editor of Psychological Science in the Public Interest and Memory, and is a member of the Editorial Boards of Infant Behaviour and Development and Developmental Psychobiology.

Professor Scott Bowman is Charles Darwin University’s (CDU) eighth Vice-Chancellor and President.

Since joining CDU in 2021, Professor Bowman has delivered a new strategic plan outlining ambitions for CDU to become Australia’s most connected university.

Professor Bowman has put renewed focus on CDU’s regional campuses, appointing senior leaders in Alice Springs, Nhulunbuy, Katherine, and Sydney. He has led a restructuring of the University and the establishment of CDU TAFE, a dedicated area for skills and training designed to meet future workplace needs.

Professor Bowman began his professional life as a radiographer, working in several London hospitals before starting his teaching and lecturing career. He left the UK for Australia to take the position of Head of the School of Clinical Sciences at Charles Sturt University and holds a Master of Politics and Government, a Ph.D. in Clinical Decision Making, and a Master of Business Administration.

Professor Bowman joined CDU as a distinguished university leader, having served as Vice-Chancellor and President of CQUniversity (CQU). For over a decade, his vision and leadership helped transform CQU into one of Australia’s largest and most engaged regional universities.

Professor Bowman also served at Western Sydney University as a Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Other previous university leadership positions include Deputy Vice-Chancellor (University Services) and Registrar at James Cook University; Foundation Head of the School of Clinical Sciences at Charles Sturt University; and Foundation Dean of the Faculty of Health Science and Community at the University College of St Martin (Lancaster University) Lancaster, UK.

In 2019 he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his significant contributions to higher education, training, and regional Australia.

Dr Kylie Austin is Associate Director, Student Equity and Success at the University of Wollongong and President of Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Australasia (EPHEA). She has many years’ experience working in the higher education sector leading the strategic planning of student equity initiatives, including the implementation of Outreach, Transition and Co-Curricular programs that aim to increase the participation of students from identified equity backgrounds in higher education. Dr Austin has a significant research interest in how partnerships can increase outcomes for students from equity students across the student lifecycle. Dr Austin has led and been involved in many national research projects, including with NCSEHE, that have focused on widening participation to higher education.

Elizabeth is a Research Associate within the Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth, Western Australia. She is also the current Co-Chair of ECU’s Staff with Disability Network.

Elizabeth is autistic and has ADHD. She holds a PhD in Higher Education Research, Evaluation and Enhancement with Lancaster University, United Kingdom. To date, her research has focused on evaluative practices and student experiences in higher education, the benefits of work-integrated learning for students and graduate employability (see https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8406-4049). Her thesis employed design research to develop, implement and test a new relational employability teaching-learning framework for universities.

With respect to her role on ACSES’ Advisory Board, Elizabeth brings lived experience of disability, and expertise in evaluation, teaching-learning, student success, equity, diversity and inclusion, and university policy, strategy, operations and performance.

Her other voluntary work includes Board and Committee membership with the Australian Collaborative Education Network (ACEN), the (international) Early-Career Higher Education Researchers Network, and the Centres for Higher Education Research and Evaluation, and Technology-Enhanced Learning at Lancaster University.

Known for her proactive and creative approach, and passion for disability access, participation and inclusion, and equity with excellence throughout higher education, Elizabeth aims to strengthen relationships, provide evidence-based impact, and inspire equitable solutions and innovations.

Professor Paul Harpur OAM is a Professor with the TC Beirne School of Law, at the University of Queensland. He is employed on a 4‐year ARC Future Fellowship supporting universities to become disability champions of change. He is an Associate with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, chairs Universities Enable – a sector‐wide disability steering‐group, and is an ambassador for the Australian Human Rights Commission Include Ability Network. Beyond academia, Professor Harpur is a dual Paralympian, lawyer, 2022 Blind Australian of the Year, and in the 2024 Australia Day Honours, Professor Harpur was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia “for service to people with disability”.

Suzi Hewlett is a Strategic Advisor at the Manufacturing Industry Skills Alliance. Suzi is committed to enabling people to expand their opportunities through learning, to get employment, and to build a successful career as well as to contribute to a productive economy. She has both national and international experience in building education systems, particularly enhancing learning and teaching, in a range of positions within government, non-government organisations and the private sector.

Over the last decade, as a senior executive in the Australian Government, she led the development of and implementation of key aspects of the national reform agendas in tertiary education, schools and youth.

Professor Holt, a Worimi/Biripi woman, is Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous at UNSW. With over 25 years experience in higher education, she was previously PVC Indigenous Strategy, Macquarie University and prior to this co-Director of the Wollotuka Institute, University of Newcastle. Professor Holt’s educational and research interests are in leadership and Indigenous education and health policy. She is a member of professional national and international Indigenous education committees and expert panels, as well as Chair and Director for local Indigenous community not-for-profit boards. She has shared her experience and expertise Chairing external reviews of Indigenous programs and services at universities nationally and internationally. Professor Holt is the author of the book ‘Talking Strong’ and has been recognised for her leadership in Indigenous higher education and community contributions, receiving national and international awards.

Kathleen Nelly is a Yamatji-Noongar Aboriginal woman with connections to Badimaya and Wirolim people, residing on Whadjuk land in Boorloo (Perth) and has spent most of her life living, studying, and working across Western Australia’s mid-west region of Geraldton and Pilbara regions.

Kathleen is a fourth-year Bachelor of Commerce student majoring in International Business and Anthropology and Sociology at Curtin University. She advocates for access to quality education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth through sharing experiences with youth on TAFE pathways into University. This advocacy is done through various youth engagements such as being an alumni of the Graham Polly Farmer Foundation “Follow the Dream”, an alumni of the Yorga Djenna Bidi Aboriginal Women’s Leadership Program and as the inaugural winner of Geraldton Central Regional TAFE’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student of the Year.

Kathleen works as a Project Officer in the Cultural Capability team at Curtin University and focuses on supporting Curtin’s Cultural Educators in implementing the Indigenous Cultural Capabilities Framework (ICCF) training to staff, students, external, and community. Since 2017, she has worked on various projects related to cultural education with a primary focus on strategy and reporting the social impact of the ICCF programs, supporting projects related to student support, student equity and reconciliation. In 2019, she was appointed as a student representative on the Curtin Indigenous Leadership Group (Governance Committee) and for two years was instrumental in advocating for improvements to the scholarship application processes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and assisted in advocacy for an Indigenous student common room in the Faculty of Business and Law at Curtin. Through this advocacy, Kathleen was appointed as a member of the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) Advisory Board as a student representative.

Professor Deborah Terry AO is Vice-Chancellor and President of The University, of Queensland, a position she took up on 1 August 2020. Previous appointments include Vice Chancellor and President of Curtin University from 2014 to 2020 and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Queensland (UQ).

Professor Terry is a Fellow of both the Australian Psychological Society and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA), and is currently President of ASSA and Chair of the Australian Council of Learned Academies. She is Associate Editor of the British Journal of Psychology, and previous Chair of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts in the Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences.