ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Kira Clarke, Brotherhood of St Laurence
Conference Co-Chair. Kira Clarke is a Senior Research Fellow in Youth Opportunity in the Social Policy and Research Centre (SPaRC) at the Brotherhood of St Laurence, where she leads SPaRC’s skills and training policy and research stream. Prior to joining BSL in February 2020, Kira was a Lecturer in Education Policy within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. As a national expert in vocational education and training policy, particularly as it relates to youth transitions and young people, Kira led the widely cited Entry to Vocations study of VET in Schools (2012–14) for NCVER, and co-led two research studies (2014–15, 2015–17) funded through the competitive National Vocational Education and Training Research (NVETR) program and in partnership with the Brotherhood of St. Laurence, examining the role of the vocational education for early school leavers. Kira is the current President of the Australasian Vocational Education and Research Association (AVETRA) and Victorian co-convener of WAVE (Women in Adult & Vocational Education).
Dr Lizzie Knight
Lizzie's key area of interest is equity of access to and in tertiary education, the provision of institutional information and support for transition into post-school education. In 2017, Lizzie completed a PhD at Monash University, investigating change in marketing messages over the period of higher education massification.
Prior to joining CIRES, Lizzie was a research fellow at Monash University. Her role included project managing an Australian Research Council Discovery Project: ‘Vocational institutions, undergraduate degrees: distinction and inequality’ from 2017 to 2020, researching the growth of higher education in TAFE institutes.
Linda Simon
Linda Simon has been a teacher in schools, TAFE and now at university. She currently teaches in adult education at Charles Sturt University. She was Secretary of the TAFE Teachers Association for over fifteen years, and Federal TAFE President of the Australian Education Union for six years. She is currently Vice-President of AVETRA. She has served on the Board of NCVER and on BVET in NSW, and is an educationalist and researcher committed to equity and public education.
Natasha works as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Queensland University of Technology. She has a professional background in Vocational Education and Training, a research background in the Learning Sciences, and a passion for leveraging technology to support and empower learners and educators
Yan Zhou, Victoria University
Yan is an education professional with 12 years of experience in a variety of education settings including TAFEs, RTOs, schools and early childhood services. After completing a number of higher education degrees in teaching, Yan is taking on the challenge to become a PhD student at Victoria University. Her proposed research topic is Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) in adult and vocational education. Yan’s current employment and industry engagement includes TAFE teaching and providing curriculum and policy advice to community language schools. Yan is bilingual - English & Chinese Mandarin. She is also an accomplished piano performer with a degree in music performance.
Anne has worked in and with the VET sector over forty years as a teacher, leader, researcher, board member and consultant working with stand-alone TAFEs and dual sector universities. She has deep knowledge of vocational, higher and further education practice and policy gained through experience in teaching, educational leadership and research. Previous roles have included Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) and Director TAFE at Victoria University and Executive Director Learning and Academic Affairs at Box Hill Institute. Anne is currently an Emeritus Professor at Victoria University, a member of the Chisholm TAFE Board and consults on tertiary education as Percipience Research.
AVETRA
AVETRA
23 is organised by the Australasian Vocational Education and Training Research
Association (AVETRA), with the support of FineHaus
Telephone
AVETRA Secretariat
+61 3 3 8658 6641