The project brings together leading academics from education, literary studies, and digital humanities, who together have decades of expertise working with teachers, texts, and technologies to enable critical and creative thinking.
Professor Katherine Bode
Katherine Bode is professor of literary and textual studies at the Australian National University. Her research explores the critical potential and limitations of computational approaches to literature, including in A World of Fiction: Digital Collections and the Future of Literary History (2018), Advancing Digital Humanities: Research, Methods, Theories (2014), Reading by Numbers: Recalibrating the Literary Field (2012) and Resourceful Reading: The New Empiricism, eResearch and Australian Literary Culture (2009).
A/Prof Larissa McLean Davies
Associate Professor Larissa McLean Davies is a leading Australian academic in literary education, with her research spanning the fields of literary studies and English education. Larissa is currently Associate Professor – Language and Literacy Education and Associate Dean – Learning and Teaching and at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne.
Emeritus Professor Wayne Sawyer
Before joining WSU, Wayne was a secondary school Head of English. He is a past President of the New South Wales (NSW) English Teachers Association (ETA) and past Chair of the NSW Board of Studies English Curriculum Committee. He is an Honorary Life Member of both the NSW ETA and the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE). Wayne’s doctoral research was on English curriculum history in NSW and he currently researches in the areas of secondary English curriculum, curriculum history, literacy policy, literary knowledge, and pedagogy in low SES schools. His most recent books include Charged with meaning: Becoming an English teacher and the co-edited The future of English teaching worldwide: Celebrating 50 years from the Dartmouth conference and Resisting educational inequality: Reframing policy and practice in schools serving vulnerable communities. He is currently completing a co-edited book on teacher education in English and a co-authored book on literary knowledge and literary education. The latter issues out of an Australian Research Council project, Investigating literary knowledge in the making of English teachers, led by Larissa McLean Davies.
Professor Sue Martin
Professor Sue Martin in the Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce. In this role, Sue is responsible for the strategic leadership of the College’s research efforts, and has oversight of the strategies and initiatives in place to lift research culture, capacity and performance. Prior to this role, Sue was the Associate Dean, Research, in the Faculty of Humanities & Social Science under the old Faculty Structure.
Sue is a Professor of English and has taught Australian and Victorian literature and culture and is a specialist in nineteenth-century Australian fiction. She has worked on reading culture, women’s writing; gender studies and theory; spatial theory; garden history/culture; and nineteenth century Victorian English fiction.
Sue has worked at La Trobe for more than 25 years and has been a mentor, adviser, coach, counsellor, teacher and friend to countless staff and students at La Trobe over this time. Sue is a mother of two, and she continually champions for the career development of women, and advocates for diversity and equity in the workforce.
Team Members
Dian Lu
Galen Cuthbertson
Fiannuala Morgan
Dr Michèle Hinton Herrington