Event details
Gender topics are at the forefront of global conversations, influencing culture, society, and politics.
Join Curtin’s Gender Research Network (GRN) for a thought-provoking discussion on the evolving landscape of gender research at Curtin – and beyond – and why it matters now more than ever.
You’ll also get an exclusive look at their new research dashboard developed by Curtin’s Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI), presented by Dr Karl Huang.
If you can’t make it in person, you can join us online. Please note a link to stream the event will be sent to you via email closer to the date.
Light refreshments will be provided.
Panel
- Moderator – Professor Katie Ellis
- Associate Professor Amy Dobson
- Dr Jin Lee
- Associate Professor Samantha Owen
- Dr Matty Phillips
What is the GRN?
The GRN brings together researchers across the Curtin campuses working as gender researchers and on gender research-related projects, as well as those interested in learning about gender research. The GRN will have appropriate representation that includes (as far as is possible): gender diversity; cultural and background diversity; campus, school, and discipline mix.
Date
Wednesday 12 March 2025
Time
12.30pm – 1.00pm: Registration & light refreshments
1.00pm – 2.30pm: Formal proceedings
2.30pm – 3.00pm: Networking & light refreshments
Location
Hollis I Lecture Theatre
Building 401.001
Curtin University
–
Or online
Presenters & Panellists
Professor Katie Ellis
Dr Katie Ellis (she/her) is a Professor in Internet Studies and Director of the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT) at Curtin University where she researches disability and digital media.
She has worked with people with disabilities in the community, government, and in academia and published widely in the area of disability, television, and digital and networked media, extending across both issues of representation and active possibilities for social inclusion.
Dr Amy Dobson
Dr Amy Shields Dobson (they/them) co-leads the Curtin Gender Research Network (GRN) and convenes the Digital and Social Media Program at Curtin University. They also lead the Digital Intimacies research stream within Curtin’s Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT). They are an expert across gender and feminism, gendered subjectivities, youth, and social media.
Amy has published widely on youth sexting, gendered representations in contemporary popular media and digital cultures, and contemporary feminine subjectivities. They are the author of ’Postfeminist Digital Cultures’ (2015) and editor of ’Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media’ (2018) with Nicholas Carah and Brady Robards.
Amy’s current ARC and other competitively funded research projects include work on young people’s responses to #MeToo and gender violence awareness, facial image editing apps, body image, and selfies in youth cultures, and below-the-line youth-targeted alcohol and nightlife marketing on social media.
Dr Jin Lee
Dr Jin Lee is a media scholar, exploring the question ‘How do people make their own lives within social media pop cultures?’. With a special focus on marginalized communities in the APAC (women, queers, children, and animals), Jin researches meanings and practices of media intimacies and visibility online. She has edited three journal special issues and authored over 20 articles and book chapters on diverse topics on gender and sexuality in pop cultures.
She is currently serving as Senior Research Fellow in Internet Studies at Curtin University, affiliated with the ARC Centre for Digital Child, Influencer Ethnography Research Lab, and TikTok Cultures Research Network.
Associate Professor Samantha Owens
Associate Professor Samantha Owen is the Director, Gender Equity and Inclusion at Curtin University, the academic lead and co-ounder of the Curtin Gender Research Network (GRN), and a lecturer and researcher in Humanities and Social Sciences with a disciplinary background in history. Samantha’s work focuses on gender, leadership, equity and contested histories. Her expertise is in understanding change, communities, and how they form and transform.
Samantha is also an experienced facilitator of leadership and mentoring programs and developing professional development on gender issues, gender based violence, leadership and intersectionality. She enjoys working closely with industry and government partners to inform policy and institutional change.
Dr Matty Phillips
Dr Matty Phillips (he/him/his) is a Lecturer in Psychology at Curtin University where his teaching and research broadly focuses on critical community and social psychology, and qualitative methods. He serves as Academic Co-Lead of the Curtin Gender Research Network (GRN). His research examines how power, identity, and social structures shape human experiences, with particular attention to the construction of the ‘social other’ and power hierarchies in diverse social contexts.
His key areas of focus include the social construction of gender, the experiences and identities of academics in higher education, and the role of discourse in shaping community dynamics. Central to his research and teaching philosophy is the transformative potential of education in creating social change and fostering a more equitable society.
Dr Karl Huang
Dr Karl Huang is the Director of the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT) and the Director for the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI). He has an interdisciplinary publication record across data science, open knowledge and open science, information science, statistics, probability theory, and finance.
Karl’s current research focuses on exploring how innovative statistical methods and large-scale data science can help map the open knowledge landscape. He is dedicated to developing approaches to support diversity in research evaluation and enable universities to tell different stories about themselves. Karl works collaboratively with several external stakeholders on tracking funding data for open infrastructures, exploring research strengths and collaborative opportunities for Australian universities, and understanding researcher perspectives on research culture and environment.
Professor Gretchen Benedix
Professor Gretchen Benedix is the Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research at Curtin University. She is a cosmic mineralogist and astro-geologist in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, using the chemistry, mineralogy, spectroscopy, and petrology of meteorites to understand the formation and evolution of asteroids and other planets.
Access
We are committed to making our events as accessible and inclusive as possible. Refer to our Access and Inclusion Guide for more information.