Congratulations to our MGSE Researchers in October

Colleagues across the School had good reason to celebrate a number of significant achievements throughout October, including fellowships, grant success, and book launches. Congratulations on these accomplishments and contributions to our discipline.

• Dr Eric Fu was successful in gaining a 2022 University of Melbourne Early Career Research Grant for his proposal, Digital Citizenship Practices of Chinese International Students in Melbourne. His project will analyse Chinese international students’ participation in digital spaces as acts of citizenship, to build new knowledge of how participation in these online communities contributes to international students’ understandings of their rights and responsibilities, their sense of identity, and the nature of belonging in a transnational mobile context.
  
• Dr Melyssa Fuqua was awarded a 2022 Melbourne Postdoctoral Fellowship to advance her program of research at the intersections of rural sociology, social change, and higher education. Her project, The Influence of Rural Youth Sports on Aspiration, Participation, and Belonging in Tertiary Education, will investigate rural youth (“returnees”) studying at metropolitan higher education institutions who return home on weekends for regional sports competitions, and how returning for sports influences these returnees and local youth in relation to aspiration, participation, and belonging in tertiary education.
  
• Prof Arathi Sriprakash (Bristol), Dr Sophie Rudolph, and A/Prof Jessica Gerrard’s new book, Learning Whiteness (Pluto Press), was launched by Prof Karen Farquharson. The event included panelists Dr Al Fricker (Lecturer of Indigenous Education, Nikeri Institute, Deakin University), Emma Kefford (Teacher), and Annette Herrera (NTEU Uni of Melb Branch President) who shared their reflections on the issues raised in the book, as the authors invite readers “to reckon with past and present politics of education in order to imagine a future thoroughly divested from racism”.
  
• Graduate Researcher Han Yue Zhong (Principal Supervisor, A/Prof Gosia Klatt, with Dr Eric Fu and Dr Melyssa Fuqua, Chaired by A/Prof Mark Selkrig), Dr Pauline Thompson, and Dr Sophie Rudolph for being awarded the best Graduate Researcher, Early Career, and Mid-Career Research Conference presentations respectively. The entire program showcased excellent research, and the richness of the discussions that followed was testament to this, so thank you to everyone who participated. A special thank you to Dr Victoria Millar and Dr Bella Blaher and their teams for making the day so successful. More to come in a separate post (including photos!).