Research Theme Champion: Education and Work

Professor Danielle Tracey

School of Education
d.tracey@westernsydney.edu.au

Danielle Tracey is a Professor in the School of Education and a Senior Researcher in the Centre for Educational Research, based on Bankstown campus.

Danielle’s expertise lies within the broader fields of Educational Psychology and Disability Studies. More specifically, her work seeks to advance the wellbeing and life opportunities of disadvantaged children and young people, with a particular focus on individuals with intellectual disabilities. She achieves this through the synergies between her research, teaching and leadership, HDR supervision, and consultancy in the field.

As an accomplished mixed-method researcher, her research adopts an ecological approach to understand and shift the influential factors at individual, practice, and community policy levels. Danielle has recently co-led a three-year longitudinal study tracking the biopsychosocial development of youth with intellectual disabilities, funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Scheme. She explains ‘the project not only advanced the methodologies utilised within this research field, but identified the malleable drivers of school life that determine the wellbeing of adolescents with intellectual disabilities’. This pioneering work was conducted in partnership with colleagues in Canada where a parallel study is occurring to influence practice both in Australia and Canada.

Danielle’s research has local, national and international significance where she partners with scholars from Canada, Hong Kong, USA, Germany, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and Hong Kong. She is widely authored in high-impact journals and is the co-editor of two international volumes on inclusive education.

Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in 2017 Danielle led an action research project with ten Senior Lecturers from Teachers’ Colleges in Papua New Guinea. The scholars spent one month in Australia working with Danielle and her colleague Dr Katrina Barker to advance the curriculum and pedagogy delivered to pre-service and in-service teachers in Papua New Guinea around inclusive education. This ongoing international partnership, facilitated by her collaboration with Australian charity KTF, continues to improve the educational support provided to children with disabilities in Papua New Guinea.

A hallmark of Danielle’s research is her engagement with industry and end-users of research to co-develop deliver and evaluate research projects. She comments that ‘one of the most rewarding aspects of my work is collaborating with industry to realise the positive impact that research can have on the community’. Her expertise in partnering with industry is bolstered by her 15 years of experience working within the community as an Educational and Developmental Psychologist and Service Manager.

Danielle was appointed as Research Theme Champion in September 2018. In this role she works with researchers across the University to promote cross-disciplinary research and collaboration with industry within the theme of Education and Work. ‘I am very keen to apply my dual expertise as a researcher and previous industry member to advance the research across the University, and foster partnerships between our researchers and industry where together we can advance the agenda of Education and Work ’.