Our people

CAROL CARTER (PhD, MEd, BEd (HONS), HDE (Speech and Drama, B.Prim.Ed) is a senior lecture in Performing Arts and Early Childhood Education, Arts Community of Practice Advisor and Director of School Experience and Community Engagement in the School of Education at Curtin University.

She has taught at a number of universities in South Africa and Australia. She  is regional director of the International Association of Creative Arts Therapies and Education (ICAET) and is review editor of the NJ journal (Drama Australia).

She has published and presented numerous papers, books and workshops both nationally and internationally.

Her research areas include cultural and linguistic diversity, alternative approaches to learning and teaching, drama education, early childhood education, initial teacher education and Arts Based Educational Research (ABER).

Dr Paul Gardner is a former teacher of Drama and English. As an academic, he is interested in the power of the written and spoken word to create rich stories, social critique, and fresh ways of reflecting on the world in its multivariate forms. In his PhD he explored writer identity and compositional processes. He is currently working on an autoethnographic verse novel and has published and performed poetry in WA and England.

Amongst his PhD students he has people studying such things as:

• the writer’s embodiment of story worlds and teacher-student conferencing to develop narrative;
• the impact of visual literacy on children’s descriptive writing, and
• autoethnography as a means of exploring empathic connections with Aboriginal literature.

Paul is especially interested in pushing boundaries in educational research and welcomes HDR students interested in creative research practices, including: film, drama, poetry and mixed media.

Lisa Paris, Ph.D. is co-lead of the Curtin Creative Practice Research Hub.  She is a Senior Lecturer and the Visual Media Arts Education Coordinator in the School of Education at Curtin University.

Across 2018 and 2019 Lisa was the Academic Lead for the Curtin University School of Education Professional Learning Hub which provides continuous professional learning to the WA in-service teacher community across all subject disciplines.

She worked as a K-12 visual arts specialist teacher and Head of Learning Area (Arts) in WA schools over 20 years and was President of the Art Education Association of WA for 3 years before her appointment as a Senior Lecturer within the School of Education at Edith Cowan University Perth in 2004.

Lisa won the ECU Vice Chancellor’s Award for “Programs that Enhance Post-Graduate Education” in 2008 and was nominated for the same award at Curtin in 2023 for the innovative Artist in Residence Program she designed and now annually coordinates.

She is the joint recipient of significant funding for research projects including an Australia Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant in 2011 and now champions arts-based research in education contexts.

Her research interests encompass pre-service arts teacher education, mentoring of beginning arts teachers, the importance of collaborative arts for children, as well as the role of the arts in facilitating inclusion for vulnerable individuals/populations.

lisa.paris@curtin.edu.au

Sally Murphy is a lecturer in Literacy in the School of Education. As a published children’s author and poet, she has a deep knowledge of creative practice as a research methodology.

Her Doctorate, Belonging: A Place In and For Children’s Poetry, was a hybrid thesis including a mixture of creative works and exegetical chapters. She is interested in research into creative writing of all forms, as well as using such writing as a research methodology in its own right.

Doctor Murphy’s creative works include more than fifty books for children and educational use, and include award winning verse novels Pearl Verses the World (2009), Toppling (2010), Worse Things (2020) as well as picture books and historical fiction.

Dr Murphy is available for HDR supervision and research projects, particularly those involving creative practice.

Jia is a lecturer in the area of educational psychology, inclusive education, and culture and curriculum. Jia has been working in teacher education for over 20 years at universities both in Australia and China.  Her teaching and research interests include teacher professional development, curriculum development, leadership and school improvement, diversity and inclusive education.