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HomeExecutive Committee 2023 - 2024
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Executive Committee 2023 - 2024

TASA’s Executive Committee (EC) governs the Association and manages its daily business as outlined in the Constitution and by established policies. A copy of TASA’s Organisational Chart can be viewed here. A call for nominations for the 2025 – 2026 Executive term will be disseminated on July 1, 2024. If you are interested in a particular Executive position, and you would like more information, we encourage you to contact the member currently in that role, see below, for a confidential chat. Note, you can view the position descriptions for each role here.  


President: Alphia Possamai-Inesedy
Alphia Possamai-Inesedy is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Western Sydney University. She was the editor in chief of the Journal of Sociology (2013- end of 2016) as well as the co-creator of the Risk Societies Thematic Group within the Australian Sociological Association. She has worked as an Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor of Academia and was responsible for the creation of the Master of Research at WSU (the first centralised degree of the University). Her recent work includes Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach (with Henslin and Possamai, 2014, Pearsons); as well as upcoming books on Digital Methods and examining religion through the digital (Sage and deGruyter). Alphia is currently involved in ongoing research that focuses on risk society, religion, and methodologies.

Kim Humphery new
Vice-President: Kim Humphery
Kim Humphery is Director of the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University. She has 30 years experience in academic teaching, research and research leadership and has studied and/or worked at a number of universities in Australia and the UK. She holds degrees from the universities of Melbourne and Cambridge in politics, social theory and history, and has a disciplinary affiliation to sociology. Over the past decade, Kim has held visiting research/professorial positions at the University of Manchester, King's College London and the University of Sussex.

Since the mid-1990s Kim has developed a national profile for her socio-cultural work in Indigenous health and cross-cultural research ethics. Internationally, however, she is best known for her work in the history, sociology and politics of consumption, and has published extensively in this field. Her latest research is on trans and gender diversity. Kim’s sole/co-authored books include: Shelf Life: Supermarkets & The Changing Cultures of Consumption (CUP, 1998 & 2011); Forgetting Compliance: Aboriginal Health & Medical Cultures (CDU, 2001); Excess: Anti-Consumerism in the West (Polity, 2010) and Art-based Social Enterprise, Young Creatives and the Forces of Marginalisation (Palgrave 2022).

Secretary: Kay Cook
Kay Cook is a Professor and Associate Dean Research in the School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education at Swinburne University of Technology. Her research centres the experiences of the subjects of social policies, to examine how the gendered and classed status quo is constructed and maintained by research, administrative and policy hierarchies and processes. She works with advocacy organisations to foreground the personal, practical and institutional barriers faced by women as they seek to combine work and care within patriarchal, neoliberal societies that individualise women’s experiences and render their experiences invisible to policymaking processes that foreground quantification and behavioural economic explanations. Professor Cook's work has focused most specifically on the unjust construction and treatment of single mothers in social policy and family law, particularly with respect to child support, welfare, family violence and financial abuse. Professor Cook has previously been Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Family Studies, Co-Director of the International Network of Child Support Scholars and an ARC Future Fellow.  

Treasurer: Anna Hickey-Moody
Anna is a Professor of Media and Communication at RMIT University and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow 2017-2021. She brings leadership experience from previous work at Goldsmiths College, The University of Sydney, Monash and UniSA. Anna is known for her theoretical and empirical work with young people with disabilities, young refugees and migrants, and men at the margins of society. Her books include “Deleuze and Masculinity” (Palgrave, 2019) ”Imagining University Education’ (Routledge, 2016), Youth, Arts and Education’ (Routledge, 2013), ‘Unimaginable Bodies’ (Sense Publishers, 2009) and ‘Masculinity Beyond the Metropolis’ (Palgrave, 2006).

Anna is  an ethnographer who is committed to advancing the public understanding of the value of sociology and, more broadly, raising public awareness of the social sciences and humanities in Australia.  Anna believes that sociological research makes societies happier, healthier and more sustainable.

Indigenous Portfolio Leader: Joann Schmider
Joann Schmider is a tropical rainforest Mamu woman who has lived in North West, north and south east Queensland, and Canberra, returning to FNQ traditional country in 2005. She is a small business manager providing governance and corporate support, strategic and operational planning, project management and stakeholder engagement services.

Joann has a Bachelor of Education, post grads in community development and Indigenous research, and Cert IVs in training, governance and leadership. She brings 30 years’ experience across social, cultural, economic and environment Indigenous related matters with community networks, organisations, government and academia.

Joann’s ongoing interests are culture and heritage, stronger public and industry recognition, and Indigenous opportunities in development. A particular interest relates to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s leadership in cultural and natural resource management and legal entities.
 
Sophie Hickey
Public Sociology: Sophie Hickey
Dr Sophie Hickey is an applied sociologist and health service researcher at the Molly Wardaguga Research Centre, Charles Darwin University. She is a strong advocate for research done in partnership with community and makes an impact. She is also keen to boost the profile of applied sociology and public sociology nationally and internationally.

She currently manages a large partnership study to redesigned maternity care with First Nations mothers and children which has seen a profound reduction in preterm birth for women accessing the new model of care, as well as other health improvements. She has supervised and mentored First Nations community researchers and research students, as well as run research capacity building workshops for students and staff from Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations. She has contributed to research that has informed changes to policy and practice for the implementation of maternity services across South East Queensland and nationally; and co-coordinates an international coalition of Indigenous maternal and infant health researchers united in the common goal to use Indigenous-led research as activism for perinatal health gains.

Sophie is currently co-convenor for TASA Applied Sociology Thematic Group, Executive Committee member of HSRAANZ, and co-ordinator/co-founder of the Australian Institutional Ethnography Network. Her outstanding research achievements have been recognised by national and international peers: HSRAANZ New Investigator Award 2021 and CDU College of Nursing and Midwifery Emerging Researcher Award in 2020. She co-led HSRAANZ Best Overall Paper 2021, and co-authored the HSRAANZ Best Quantitative Paper 2019.
 
Richa George
Postgraduate Portfolio Leader: Richa George
Richa George, is a 3rd year PhD candidate in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. Richa's project lies at the intersection of social media research and critical studies in men and masculinities and examines the experiences of digitally engaged young men in Australia. Richa's other research interests include the sociology of youth, digital cultures, and qualitative methodologies. I began my PhD in Australia right at the cusp of the Covid-19 pandemic and witnessed, first-hand, the abject sense of lost time, lost opportunities, and a fractured belonging to my school and cohort. Richa joined TASA to build connections, and realising its potential to bring postgraduates together, joined the post graduate sub-committee to foster a platform where HDRs can connect, learn, hone their interests, and celebrate sociology.  

Equity and Inclusion: Aisling Bailey
With a background in environmental anthropology, Aisling’s research has investigated the ways in which the western dualistic conceptualisation of nature as separated from culture has shaped societal understandings and behaviour towards the natural environment. Informed by a phenomenological approach, Aisling’s research has focused upon practical initiatives that seek to bring people and place together working with organisations including the Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies (CERES) and the community gardening organisation 3000 Acres. Current research interests include the reciprocity of the health and wellbeing of people and place; facilitating sustainable behaviour; nature based solutions; equitable access to healthy environments; climate adaptation, and reviews articles for a number of environmental and social science based journals. Aisling is an affiliate of the Centre for Urban Transitions and is currently supervising PhD projects on connection to place; settler colonialism; environmental and climate discourse; social practice theory's application to food waste; and the ecological crisis of the Murray Darling Basin. With reference to teaching, Aisling is the Coordinator of the Climate and Social Justice Major and convenes the units Environment and Society SOC10005 and Changing our Climate SOC30020, as well as the Climate Action challenge within the Bachelor of Arts' capstsone unit Grand Challenges ART30001.

Thematic Groups:Tom Barnes
Tom Barnes is an economic sociologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University (ACU), in Sydney. His research primarily focuses on insecure, precarious and informal work. He is currently researching global warehouse logistics and automotive manufacturing. His recent Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA project (2017-2019) focused on the demise of Australian automotive manufacturing and the impact on workers and communities in closure-affected regions in Victoria. He completed his PhD in political economy at the University of Sydney in 2011 and has expertise on work and economic development in India. He has written two books in this area: Informal Labour in Urban India: Three Cities, Three Journeys (Routledge, 2015) and Making Cars in the New India: Industry, Precarity and Informality (Cambridge University Press, 2018). His articles have appeared in several journals, including Journal of Sociology, Journal of Development Studies and Critical Sociology. His new project focuses on the intersection of surveillance technology, worker agency and rights in warehouse logistics. 

Helen Forbes-Mewett
JoS Editor in Chief: Helen Forbes-Mewett
Helen Forbes-Mewett is Discipline Head of Sociology, School of Social Sciences and Deputy Director of the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre. Helen's interdisciplinary background includes Sociology, Psychology and International Business, degrees all awarded by Monash University. Her work focuses on human security, migration, cultural diversity, and social cohesion, with a particular focus on international students. Since 2018, Helen has supervised to completion eight PhD theses. In addition, Helen is currently supervising a 12 Higher Degree Research students from 10 different countries - all undertaking work relating to migration, international education/students and social inclusion. Read on... 
 
Katherine Kenny
HSR Editor in Chief: Katherine Kenny
Dr Katherine Kenny is an ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies, School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Sydney. In her research, she brings together cutting-edge social theory and innovative qualitative methods to develop new ways of understanding, and addressing, some of the key health challenges that we face as individuals, societies, and as a global community. From how we understand emerging global health threats, to what we go through when we receive a diagnosis of a life-limiting illness, her research pays careful attention to people’s day-to-day subjective and socially situated experiences of health, illness and care. In addition to her current DECRA Fellowship (DE22), she has worked across a number of ARC-funded projects as Postdoctoral Research Fellow (LP14, DP15, LP16, LP17) and as a CI (DP19). In 2021 she published a co-authored book (with Alex Broom – Routledge) and, to date, has published 34 peer reviewed journal articles (>80% in Q1 journals) and 4 scholarly book chapters. Her work routinely appears leading international journals including Sociology, The Sociological Review, The British Journal of Sociology, Sociology of Health and Illness, Social Science and Medicine, Subjectivity and Qualitative Health Research. She is a regular reviewer for a wide range of general and specialist sociology journals including: The Sociological Review, Body & Society, Science, Technology & Human Values, Social Studies of Science, Qualitative Health Research, Critical Public Health, Health Sociology Review and Health Expectations (among others) and has recently reviewed book manuscripts for both Columbia University Press and New York University Press

Digital Publications Editor (new to this term): Roger Wilkinson
"I studied undergraduate and postgraduate Sociology at La Trobe University before moving to James Cook University in north Queensland. I taught many subjects and travelled between campuses until video-conferencing offered a weak alternative to face-to-face teaching. Dissatisfaction with this mode of teaching led me to consider and develop podcasting. The rise of the iPhone and a chance meeting with a student led me to search for ways of embedding video-podcasts on smart phones. I then used this method to digitally grade essays by making movies. While there was little interactivity, it solved some problems and, in consultation with students, created other possibilities.

Recently retrenched, I decided to become a student again, completing a postgraduate qualification in Human Resource Management. Subsequently, I commenced postgraduate study in Digital Communications but have paused that study because I was frustrated with the content, teaching methods and backwardness of the literature. I may never return to that formal study but it has provided me with invaluable negative lessons about the experience of being a student in the digital age.

These desire to keep learning, reading and developing my digital literacy attracted me to the position of digital publications editor at TASA."

Immediate Past President: Dan Woodman
Professor Dan Woodman is in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. As well as President of TASA he is Vice President for Australia, New Zealand and Oceania of the Research Committee for the Sociology of Youth within the International Sociological Association. His work focuses on the sociology of generations, social change, and the impact of insecure work and variable employment patterns on people’s relationships. His recent books include Youth and Generation (Sage) and the four volume collection Youth and Young Adulthood (Routledge).

Past Presidents Deb King (L) and Jo Lindsay

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