Research Committee
 | Associate Professor Maria Estala Varua Maria Estela is an agricultural economist, an econometrician and socio-economist with over 20 years’ experience in Australia and Asia. Her primary area of expertise centres on agricultural and resource economics, with a focus on rural development, water management, gender equity, sustainable consumption, sustainable tourism, cost benefit analysis and capacity building. She conducts research on corporate social responsibility, finance, and business education. Maria Estela has participated in several projects, including a $1.2 million project with ACIAR on water management, a CRC project on water use, and a Westpac Foundation project on NGO-corporate relationships. She has been the recipient of the AIDAB Scholarship, ICLARM-Ford Foundation Fellowship, SEARCA Fellowship and the WINROCK Scholarship |
 | Associate Professor Dilupa Nankandala Dilupa's research interests are in innovation, technology transfer management and supply chain management. Her research has been recognised by the funding from the ARC, DFAT and WSU. She has published in top-tier journals; several book chapters and in practitioner journals. Dilupa's skills in both qualitative and quantitative research methods enable her to do studies using a variety of methods and modelling. She teaches innovation, entrepreneurship, and project management. She is also a certified Project Management Professional in PMI, USA and a Design Thinking practitioner, with the PRINCE2 Practitioner qualification. |
| Professor Meg Smith Meg has an extensive research record in the area of gender equity, a key prerequisite to sustainable employment outcomes. Her expertise in pay equity investigations and institutional explanations for the undervaluation of feminised work has been the basis of international and domestic journal articles, research consultancy, expert opinion and submissions to parliamentary inquiries. Meg's scholarship has focused in contrasting and complementary approaches to gender equity evaluation and regulation. These include equal rights discourses in industrial and discrimination-based legislation, and also gender equity auditing and reporting. Meg’s recent work has included a major research report on equal remuneration claims for the Fair Work Commission, along with Andrew Stewart (University of Adelaide) and Robyn Layton QC (University of South Australia). |
| Associate Professor Ann Dadich An Associate Professor of HR and Management, Ann is internationally recognised as an expert in health service management. Her engaged research has made considerable contributions to health service management. She is committed to making a positive difference in the world through an orientation to others. She holds editorial appointments with leading academic journals, including the Australian Health Review and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. She is Deputy Director of the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise Knowledge Translation Strategic Platform; she serves on the ACSPRI Executive Committee; and is a Board member of ANZAM. |
| Professor Kevin Daly Kevin’s research passion revolves around applied finance and open economy macroeconomics. His research focus includes an examination of the extent to which exchange rate volatility affects trade; an investigation of the extent to which financial instability affects the poor in developing countries; a study of the extent to which volatility in interest rates affects the availability and affordability of credit; and analysing how oil price volatility impacts on stock prices. Current research interests focuses on banking in China and Vietnam, foreign direct investment in China and Vietnam and financial volatility of stock markets in SE Asia. |
| Dr Aila Khan Aila’s interests are social marketing; human-computer interaction in retail settings; SMEs in Vietnam; and structural equation modelling. She is a member of the Marketing, International Business and Sports discipline group and teaches Marketing Research and Business Analysis Seminars. Aila’s latest publication is ‘WSU Customer Insights’ published in 2022, adding to her extensive publications in various high quality research journals and book chapters. |
| Associate Professor Anil Mishra Anil is a financial economist. His primary research interest is in the area of home bias. His other research interests include empirical asset pricing and behavioral finance. He has published in top-tier Finance journals including the Journal of Empirical Finance; Journal of International Money and Finance; Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money; among others. His research related to home bias has been cited in leading journals including Review of Financial Studies, Review of Finance, Journal of International Money and Finance, and Journal of International Economics; among others. Currently, Anil is the Associate Editor of the Australian Economic Papers. He has supervised several Ph.D., Honours, and DBA students to successful completion. |
| Dr Premaratne Samaranayake Prior to joining Western Sydney, Prem worked as a Research Engineer at Industrial Research Institute Swinburne (IRIS), Swinburne University of Technology. Currently, he is an Associate Professor and teaches and coordinates units in Logistics and Supply Chain Management areas. During this time, he also held a number of administrative roles including Leader - Business Process Evolution Studies (BPES) Research Node, Course Advisor for M. Bus(ERP) course and Course Coordinator for BBA Program. He completed SAP Certification on Best Practices in ERP (BPERP) and is a certified Solution Consultant of SAP ERP for small and midsize enterprises. |
| Dr Jess Richards Jess is currently a senior lecturer in Sport Management. Her research broadly focuses on sport management, sport marketing, event management and measuring the social impact of sport for all members of the community. She is widely published in high quality research journals and has produced commissioned industry reports for Tennis Australia, Rugby Union Australia, various National Rugby League clubs and various Australian Football League clubs. Her research aims to explore the benefit of engaging with sport for all the community, with a focus particularly on advancing the visibility of women’s sport. |
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