Meet our PhD members

Our network comprises a number of Griffith University PhD candidates.

Here you can find out more about our individual PhD students and their research interests.

Network PhD students

Here you can search the PhD candidates in our network by name, or sort by their research themes or academic group.

Beatrice Alupo

Beatrice Alupo

Beatrice is a PhD candidate at Griffith's School of Government and International relations. She holds a Msc. Governance and Regional Integration from Pan African University, Cameroon, MA International Trade Policy and Law from Uganda Martyrs University and the Bachelor of International Business of Makerere University, Uganda. Beatrice’s PhD project examines the gender inclusive response to refugee integration in Uganda, with the focus on the integration experiences of refugee women when accessing and/or participating in socio-economic and political arenas.

Sofia Ammassari

Sofia Ammassari

Sofia is a PhD candidate at the School of Government and International Relations. Her research examines the role women play as grassroots party members. It explores the trajectories and motives behind women's participation, the activities they undertake and the meaning they attribute to their own participation. The research also looks at how parties see their female members by assessing whether gender shapes their recruitment strategies, the opportunities they offer in terms of participation and socialisation and mechanisms of mobilisation.

Julie Ballangary

Julie Ballangary

Julie is a PhD student at the School of Government and International Relations. Prior to commencing her PhD, Julie completed a Bachelor of Education with Honours (Class 1). As a proud Gumbaynggirr/Dunghutti woman, she is passionate about Indigenous issues, especially in regards to education and public policy. Her current research seeks to explore why Indigenous education policies are continually failing by investigating the current approaches to policy-making in this arena.

Lu Chang

Lu Chang

Lu Chang is a PhD student in the Department of Tourism, Sport & Hotel Management, Griffith University. She holds a masters in management from Sun Yat-sen University, China. Her research interests include well-being in tourism, eudaimonic approaches and seniors as an emerging tourism segment.

Kelsey Chapman

Kelsey Chapman

Kelsey is the research lead of The Dignity Project Flagship program at The Hopkins Centre. She is also the lead researcher on a new collaboration with the Department of Transport and Main Roads. Kelsey specialises in human rights research, disability research and rights, critical disability theory, and dignity theory. She has extensive experience in ethics, governance, and data management and security as well as supporting fellow researchers in project and research management.

Alexandra Gorton

Alexandra Gorton

Alexandra is a violinist and PhD candidate at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, examining aesthetic and praxial tensions in music-making. Her current research explores the phenomenology of flow states in classical music performance settings, and how environmental and social relations contribute to expressions of self and experiences of Music Performance Anxiety. Her additional research interests are in areas of culture, intersectionality, diversity and equity in music practice.

Negar Faaliyat

Negar Faaliyat

Negar is a PhD Candidate in the Department of ERHR at Griffith Business School. Her PhD research assesses how successful female Middle East and North African skilled migrants are in transferring their skills and finding jobs in the Australian labour market. Negar gained her Master of Economics at University of Adelaide and Master of Environment (Economics and Policy) at Griffith University. She has been teaching business and economics since 2007 and has a highly developed quantitative and qualitative research skills.

Nina Ginsberg

Nina Ginsberg

Nina is a community bike researcher, rider, blogger, activist, creative, academic/teacher and PhD canddiate. Her work shares the myriad ways in which bicycles create positive social and environmental change. Currently, she is putting to work feminist new materialisms to explore how bicycles feature in West African girls' access to secondary school. She's interested in gender, mobility, education, sustainabiltiy, curiosity, beauty, joy, nature, respect and sharing good conversations over many cups of tea. Have fun, ride bikes, do good.

Masaki Higgs Kobayashi

Masaki Higgs Kobayashi

Masaki is a PhD candidate in the Department of EBE at Griffith Sciences. Her PhD research traces historical Japanese women’s movements in relation to the current status of women’s movements in Japan. The research looks at repression of women and women's movements in Japan by legislation and constitutional amendment during the last two decades, specifically legislation derived from the old Constitution of the Empire of Japan and how that legislation affects women and women’s movements as in the past.

Rachel Howley

Rachel Howley

Rachel is a music educator, conductor and doctoral candidate at the Queensland Conservatorium. Her research explores the role of the conductor in championing the music of Australian female composers and she is an active advocate for encouraging diversity and fair gender representation through the selection of repertoire. Rachel regularly presents sessions for music educators from across Australia and more recently, internationally. Through her research, she has commissioned several new works and facilitated partnerships between emerging composers and Australian publishing companies.

Jingjing Hu

Jingjing Hu

Ms Jingjin Hu is a doctoral student at Sunyet-sen University, China and a visiting scholar at Griffith University hosted by Dr Aishath Shakeela. Her research interest are mainly on the water resource utilisation in rural tourism based on her participation in a long-term poverty alleviation project through tourism development—AZheKe Plan. During the execution of the Plan, she began to observe and reflect on the gender issues as rural tourism developing.

Elise Imray Papineau

Elise Imray Papineau

Elise is a PhD candidate and ethnographer whose work is profoundly enmeshed in activist praxis. Her current research focuses on women engaged in grassroots activism in Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines, exploring gendered community politics, creative strategies of resilience and the role of DIY. She completed her M.Sc. in Anthropology at the University of Montreal having researched Muslim Punk in Indonesia. She continues to advocate for radical pedagogy and contributes to local social justice causes through DIY projects.

Jess Sanggyeong Je

Jess Sanggyeong Je

Jess is a PhD student who just opened her eyes to feminist theories and frameworks. She feels passionate about helping other women in need and shed light on research to make more sustainable workplaces for both women and men.

Anna McPherson

Anna McPherson

Anna is a doctoral candidate at the School of Medicine and Dentistry (Public Health). She completed a BDS from Dundee University and a Master in Public Health, with distinction from Griffith University. Her research interests include child and maternal health, social marketing for change and mHealth. Her current research focuses on using digital interventions to increase breastfeeding rates in her home country of Ireland. Outside of research, Anna enjoys running, cooking a mean curry and camping with her family.

Libby Myers

Libby Myers

Libby Myers is a guitarist and doctoral candidate at Queensland Conservatorium. Her research focuses on innovative artistic and narrative methodologies, intersubjectivity and identity in contemporary music. Her collaborations with composers as part of her research were released in the solo album "Unfettered and Alive" in 2022. She is a research assistant on interdisciplinary projects within the Creative Arts Research Institute Griffith University.

Madeleine Pugin

Madeleine Pugin

Madeleine is a Kombumerri woman of the Gold Coast. She holds a BA, MIR and GradDipEd (Secondary). Her research is focusing on UNDRIP, specifically cultural rights, and the struggle of identity and recognition of her people as the Traditional Custodians of their Country. As a previous high school English teacher, she is interested in Indigenous education as well as Aboriginal history, Indigenous politics and feminism.

Tristan Russell

Tristan Russell

Tristan's PhD explores the intersection between age and gender, and utilising prisoners’ voices. It also explores the experiences of older women incarcerated in Thailand. Tristan has published papers in the areas of gender, imprisonment trajectories and life both during and post-incarceration. She is also currently involved in research projects focusing on post-separation family violence (and how this impacts on women and children) and the use of restorative justice in cases of gendered violence.

Afrouz Shoghi

Afrouz Shoghi

Afrouz Shoghi is a registered organisational psychologist, currently completing her PhD on the positive perspectives of workforce participation for women with children in their early years. Afrouz has a passion for supporting systems and communities in enabling improved organisational and people outcomes, in particular for women and mothers in the workforce. Afrouz has more than 15 years' experience working in government and not-for-profit organisations in promoting strategic and social impact outcomes for workforces, communities and families.

Lindsey Stevenson-Graf

Lindsey Stevenson-Graf

Lindsey is undertaking a PhD focusing on the Inter-American human rights system. She has a JD and a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from George Washington University and is admitted as a lawyer in the United States and Australia. She is a Senior Teaching Fellow at Bond University in the Faculty of Law and researches in human rights law and clinical legal education. Before transitioning into an academic career, Lindsey worked at several non-governmental organisations.

Queenie Pearl Tomaro

Queenie Pearl Tomaro

Queenie Pearl V. Tomaro is a PhD candidate at the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith

Carla Tapia

Carla Tapia

Carla is a PhD candidate in Griffith's School of Education and Professional Studies. She is a teacher with experience in preschool, primary, secondary and tertiary education. She completed a Master of education in Early childhood with a research project about challenges teachers faced in intercultural classrooms. Her current research project is about teacher activists in Chile. This research is being undertaken from a Borderland Mestizaje feminism perspective.

Mona Ji Hyun Yang

Mona Ji Hyun Yang

Mona is a PhD candidate with research interests in tourism impacts on hosts, rights of vulnerability, children and qualitative research. Currently she is working on exploring how host-children perceive tourism impacts on their quality of life.

Iraz Zeren

Iraz Zeren

As a criminologist, Iraz strongly believes in women uplifting women and focuses on that in her teaching, learning and research.

Contact us

If you'd like to know more about our network or get involved, contact Program Co-Convenors: Sara Davies and Susan Harris Rimmer.