SLA Organising Committee

Valentine Mukuria

Western Sydney University

Dr Valentine Mukuria is an Education Consultant: Work Integrated Learning and Service-Learning (Careers, Talent and Organisational Success) and Adjunct Fellow at the Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI) at Western Sydney University. Valentine holds a doctorate in Educational Policy and Leadership from the Ohio State University (USA) with a dissertation titled, Civic Engagement in Kenya: Developing student leadership through service learning. Valentine held a visiting academic appointment at Green Templeton College (Oxford University) where she had the opportunity to meet Sir David Watson who encouraged and inspired her to pursue and implement frameworks for university-community engagement. Valentine also held a visiting scholar appointment at the Institute of Education (University of London), and is currently undertaking a second doctorate (Doctor of Social Science) at the University of Sydney with a research project titled, Higher Education sans frontiers: The role of universities in addressing the protracted refugee situation in Kenya.

Jen Azordegan

Australian Catholic University

Dr Jen Azordegan manages ACU’s national community engagement program, which provides students across disciplines with curriculum-based, community-embedded learning opportunities in conjunction with partners in the community and non-profit sectors. She joined ACU in 2019 with over a decade of experience in teaching, research and project roles in Australian higher education, particularly in the area of teacher education. She was previously an education policy researcher in the US and trained as a primary school teacher. Her PhD research was a community-engaged, sociological exploration of the connections between an Australian primary school and parents from an refugee background. Jen is passionate about the role of educational institutions in building social cohesion and fostering greater inclusion of children, youth, and families from diverse and marginalised communities in the educational process.

Dianne Chambers

University of Notre Dame Australia

Dianne Chambers, Ph. D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame Australia (Fremantle), coordinates special education programs and teaches into courses on catering for students with disabilities, inclusion and behaviour management at undergraduate level. Postgraduate teaching areas include adaptive education, behaviour management and social skills, children with special needs, assistive technology and educating students who are gifted and talented. She also supervises students within the School of Education Masters and PhD programs.

She is published in the field of service learning, inclusive education, assistive technology and children with ASD. Dianne has also consulted with UNESCO on guidelines for persons with disabilities and Open and Distance Learning using open solutions (published), and teacher education for global citizenship. She is currently involved in escorting pre-service teachers to Cambodia via a service-learning immersion.

Kate Lloyd

Macquarie University

Kate is an Associate Professor in Geography and Planning at Macquarie University. Her research and teaching experiences focus on Indigenous and Development Geographies, University-Community engagement and practice-based learning. She takes an applied, action-oriented and collaborative approach to research and teaching characterised by community partnerships, co-creation of knowledge and an ethics of reciprocity. As a result at the heart of her life-work are innovative co-authored and co-created projects with academic colleagues, community partners, students and Country.

Kate has a demonstrated commitment to scholarship on experiential and Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and employability by leading the PACE Research and Evaluation strategy and has been involved in a range of projects such a 2015-2017 OLT strategic priority grant (SP14-4605 $348,000) Co-creating support curriculum with international community partners from Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Fiji, Indonesia and Peru; and a 2016-2018 cross-institutional research project on “Developing social network capabilities for graduate employability” with QUT and ECU funded by Graduate Careers Australia ($58,000).

Ng Aik Min

Lingnan University - Hong Kong

Min is passionate in Community Development work & Innovation; and is energised by being with people from various fields and industries. An Industrial Designer by training, she finds meaning in applying the innovation process from creation of commercial products; to solutioning for the benefit of communities.

Before joining Lingnan University, she was involved in the conceptualisation and implementation of institutional-wide Design Thinking courses in Singapore Polytechnic such as Social Innovation Project in General Education and more notably, the Learning Express Programme (LeX), a signature Service Learning Programme that has its foot print across 8 countries and 30 locations in Asia.

Today, she oversees the institutional administration of Service-Learning courses in Lingnan University ensuring 100% fulfilment of the Service-Learning Graduation requirement.

Meg Noack

Australian Lutheran College

Meg Noack is an educator worked across 3 sectors of schooling; primary, secondary and tertiary. She obtained her doctorate [and Masters] from ACU and holds a Graduate Diploma Arts [Children’s Literature] and in Religious Education. Meg has been a classroom teacher, a Deputy Principal and an Education Adviser for Education Queensland. She has been a Lecturer at Central Queensland University and worked for Lutheran Education Queensland as Director of Director of Identity and

Formation. Currently, she co-teaches two, post-graduate Service-Learning and Community Engagement units for Australian Lutheran College. In 2021 two short courses will be offered as well.

Billy O'Steen

University of Canterbury

In his position as the inaugural Associate Professor of Community Engagement and the Director of the UC Community Engagement Hub, Dr Billy Osteen matches things that need doing across Christchurch with Canterbury students and staff. These positions and the University of Canterbury’s focus on community engagement originated from the more than 11,000 students who participated in the Student Volunteer Army following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes and the related service-learning course – CHCH101: Rebuilding Christchurch - that Billy created in 2011. In the last seven years, over 1,000 students have taken the course and contributed more than 30,000 hours to the city’s rebuild.

Prior to arriving in New Zealand in 2005, Billy taught high school, was a middle school principal, guided white water raft trips, worked for a US politician, administered a Peace Corps program, and taught prospective high school and middle school teachers. He and his wife and two daughters enjoy spending time in the New Zealand outdoors.

Jerry Unser

Emmanuel College - Gold Coast

Jerry Unser came from the USA to Australia in the early 1980s as a Sports/Outdoor Education teacher. He later gained an M.A. Counselling degree and worked as a chaplain for the state and national divisions of the Seventh-day Adventist church; and later for Queensland Education in Behaviour Management. In 1993 Jerry experimented with taking a group of students to a regional community as a form of service during a time of drought. The transformation of the teachers and students involved led to more trips and the expansion of the concept of groups of students returning to engage with local communities. The idea was called “Storm Co” in recognition of the symbolism of rain and the acronym, “Service to Others Really Matters”. The concept of service immersion in regional and rural communities grew around Australia and New Zealand with teams still active now.

Jerry’s passion is to link Service-learning research and ethical best practice with existing groups who have a passion for volunteering and community engagement. He serves as the Director of Compass and Service-learning at Emmanuel College on the Gold Coast and spends many holidays with groups of students learning through engagement with the outback communities Emmanuel students have embraced.