Doctor Myra Gurney

Myra Gurney has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Language and Modern History and a Diploma in Education from the University of Sydney (1981). She also has an MA (Communication and Cultural Studies) from the University of Western Sydney (2002). She has recently graduated with a PhD from Western Sydney University (2018). 

Before becoming a full time academic at UWS, she worked for the Commonwealth Bank as a graduate trainee in the newly formed Electronic Banking Division which was responsible for the implementation of Australia's early EFTPOS network. She was responsible for conducting merchant and branch training, writing training materials, developing marketing material and technical liaison with the CBA's IT department. She also taught for TAFE for in various Business Studies courses teaching Business Communication, Psychology and Management.

Myra joined what was then UWS (Nepean) in 1997 and became a full time staff member in 2003. She teaches across a range of core communication units, with particular focus on communication theory and professional writing and editing. She has also taught into various research methods units. She acted as International Student mentor for the Master of Professional Communication degree for a number of years, a role which assisted NESB postgraduate students with their academic writing. As a member of Global Media Journal Australia editorial committee, she has mentored HDR students to revise and publish in two postgraduate editions of the journal in 2019 and 2020. 

Myra remains keenly interested in teaching professional writing skills in innovative ways and in 2021 became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She also has a keen interest in linguistics and politics and in the role of language in political communication. Her PhD thesis was titled "The great moral challenge of a generation: The language, discourse and politics of the climate change debate in Australia 2007-2017".

Along with colleague Dr. Ray Archee, she has developed and developed blended learning techniques in the various units she has coordinated and has created course websites, interactive online tutorials and other learning objects to enhance and enable student learning. Along with Ray, she has received a number of university grants and awards for this work including an ALTC citation in 2011. They are currently researching the impact of hybrid online teaching delivery modes via Zoom. 

This information has been contributed by Doctor Gurney.