Our committees

Associate Professor Tuguy Esgin is Dean of Indigenous Engagement in the Faculty of Business and Law at Curtin University. A proud Noongar Yamatji man, Associate Professor Tuguy Esgin is committed to deeply embedding Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing into the Indigenous academic landscape and believes these traditional approaches are not just supplementary but central to creating a more inclusive and effective educational environment.

Associate Professor Esgin is an experienced academic professional with a strong background in Indigenous engagement and holds a PhD in Exercise Science, a Master of Business Administration, and a Master and Bachelor of Health Science (Indigenous Community Health).

His most recent positions include Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, where he taught ‘Strategy Innovation and Entrepreneurship,’ and Senior Researcher and Insights Associate at UNSW.
In 2023, he was lead author of a systematic review published in Dialogues in Health on twenty years of randomised controlled trials with Indigenous participants.

Professor Jolanda Jetten is Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland. After being awarded her PhD in 1997 from the University of Amsterdam, she took up a postdoctoral fellowship position at the University of Queensland funded by UQ, the Dutch Research Council (NWO), and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW), 1998-2001.

She moved to Britain in 2001 and spent nearly 6 years at the University in Exeter. In 2007, she joined the University of Queensland again as a Research Fellow. After this, she was employed as an ARC Future Fellow (2012-2016), UQ Development Fellow (2017-2019), and was awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship (2019-2023) on ‘Responding to the challenge of identity change’. She also serves as an expert on the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government’s (BETA) Academic Advisory Panel.

Clinical Professor Michaela Lucas is a Clinical Immunologist/Allergist and Immunopathologist and Clinician-Scientist with conjoint appointments with Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Pathwest, the Perth Children’s Hospital, and The University of Western Australia, where she leads a multi-disciplinary team of clinical and basic science researchers, microsurgeons and technicians, at the Immunology and Transplantation Lab. After completing medical training in Germany, she received a Marie Curie Research Fellowship and undertook a four-year postdoctoral position at the University of Oxford where she studied liver T-cell immunology. Her research interests and expertise span T cell immunology including the pathogenesis of T cell mediated drug allergies, anti-viral T cell responses, vaccine development, and most recently understanding the role of inflammation in the development of adaptive immunity in organ transplantation, and the impacts of plastics exposure to human health.

Professor Lucas’s research has produced over 150 peer-reviewed papers. She has held multiple national and international research grants as a principle and co-investigator. She is a leading clinician in the field of Clinical Immunology and Allergy in Australia and is past president of the Australasian Society of Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA), and the current co-director and co-chair of the National Allergy Council.

Dr Mark Robinson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow. Mark is a public health and evaluation specialist and has led the development of evaluation frameworks with varied partners across a range of topics. He was a principal author of the 2021 report to the Australian Government on the Student Equity in Higher Education Evaluation Framework (SEHEEF). He recently led the development of a detailed Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Framework for Health and Wellbeing Queensland (HWQld) and currently leads the strategic evaluation of a suite of six preventive health programs funded by HWQld. Mark also played a major role in the development of Queensland Health’s Cancer Strategy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People and is currently leading a detailed review of data, policies, and evidence relevant to men’s health on behalf of the Commonwealth Government Department of Health and Aged Care.

Professor Sally Kift has been a Visiting Research and Visiting Professorial Fellow at ACSES and previously served on the Centre’s Advisory Committee. She is currently a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at Victoria University and an Adjunct Professor at James Cook University (JCU), QUT and La Trobe University. She is a Non-Executive Director on several Navitas Australian University Partnerships Boards. Since 2019, she has been the Australian Vice-President and Member, Executive Board of the International Federation of National Teaching Fellows (IFNTF). Sally is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA), a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (FAAL), and President of the Australian Learning and Teaching Fellows (ALTF). She has held several university leadership positions, including as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at JCU and Director, First Year Experience at QUT. Sally is a national Teaching Award winner, a national Program Award winner and a national Senior Teaching Fellow on the First Year Experience. In 2010, she was appointed an Australian Discipline Scholar in Law. In 2017, Sally received an Australian University Career Achievement Award for her contribution to Australian higher education. Sally was a member of the Australian Qualifications Framework Review Panel that reported to Government in September 2019. Since 2017, she has been working as an independent higher education consultant.

Professor Andrew Harvey is Director of the Pathways in Place program (Logan) and Professor of Education at Griffith University. He has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and PhD in Politics, both from the University of Melbourne. Andrew has published widely in areas of equity, diversity, and higher education policy, including student equity, admissions, retention, and globalisation. He is lead editor of Student Equity in Australian Higher Education: Twenty-five years of A Fair Chance for All (Springer, 2016). Other research interests include nationalism, identity, and Latin American culture. Andrew’s previous roles include Director of Student Equity and Director of the Centre for Higher Education Equity and Diversity Research (CHEEDR) at La Trobe University, Acting Pro-Vice Chancellor (Students) at La Trobe, and Deputy Director (Academic) of the Bendigo Campus of La Trobe. He was the recipient of several competitive research grants from NCSEHE between 2013 and 2021.

Professor Maria Raciti (Kalkadoon-Thaniquith/Bwgcolman) is a social marketer who uses marketing tools and techniques to bring about social justice and behaviour change. Professor Raciti is a Director of the Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre, co-leader of the Education and Economies theme in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures and a member of the executive of the Australian Association of Social Marketing. In 2018, Maria was a NCSEHE Equity Research Fellow, undertaking the project, ‘Career construction, future work and the perceived risks of going to university for young people from low SES backgrounds’. This led to her being seconded to be part of an Australian Government departmental task force assisting with the 2019 National Regional, Rural and Remote Tertiary Education Strategy. Maria is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK), is regularly engaged as an expert advisor and has undertaken several large-scale research projects that have produced meaningful and impactful outcomes.

Ms Sonal Singh is Executive Manager, Student Equity and Access, at the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion at UTS. She is an equity practitioner with 15 years of experience across the higher education and social sectors and is the Treasurer of EPHEA (Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Australasia). Sonal has led key national research projects focussing refugee-educational outcomes, culturally inclusive research methodologies and digital literacy in Australia. A key focus of Sonal’s research has been on collaborations across universities, resulting in her leading the evaluation of the Bridges to Higher Education program for Macquarie University. She is currently the UTS Lead for the New South Wales Equity Consortium and co-chairs the Learning Creates–Tertiary Pathways project in breaking systematic access barriers to higher education.

Dr Cathy Stone is an independent consultant and researcher and a Conjoint Associate Professor with the University of Newcastle. Cathy’s professional background is in social work and student support. She has a long-standing interest in and commitment to improving the student experience for increasingly diverse university student cohorts. Her doctoral dissertation was on the experiences of mature-age students entering university via an enabling program, while her more recent research has focussed on ways to improve the online student experience. This was the topic of her research with NCSEHE as an inaugural Equity Fellow in 2016, developing National Guidelines for Improving Student Outcomes in Online Learning which have been widely utilised by Australian universities, particularly since 2020 when COVID-19 led to the mainstreaming of online education delivery. Cathy continues to be an active researcher, focussing mainly on the experiences of mature-age, first-in-family and regional students, including those studying online. She is a past President, life-time member and Fellow of the Australian & New Zealand Student Services Association (ANZSSA), and a past editor of its professional journal. Cathy currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Continuing Higher Education.

Professor Gary Thomas (Yui and Australian South Sea Islander) is the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Education, Research and Engagement at RMIT University.

Professor Thomas has held academic, professional, and senior executive roles at six Australian institutions. He has contributed to national and international Indigenous education agendas as an office bearer within the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium and the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium. Professor Thomas previously served as a member of the NCSEHE Advisory Board.

In 2016, Professor Thomas became the first Indigenous Australian to be awarded Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK).