Dr Melinda Mann is a Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman, who has forged a career advocating for equitable and accessible education. Melinda lives in Rockhampton, Queensland where most of her family and extend family live and where she raises her three teenaged children. Melinda draws on her professional experience in community education and training and development; her lived experiences as an Aboriginal and South Sea Islander woman and her upbringing in small regional and rural towns. In her roles at CQUniversity – including her current role as the Deputy Director of Student Life and Wellbeing, Melinda works to ensure education is accessible for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, international students, regional, rural and remote students, students living with a disability, students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and students who are first-in-family to attend University. In 2019, Melinda became the first Darumbal person to complete a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at CQUniversity. Melinda’s research focussed on the experience of young people living on Darumbal Country who were either Traditional Owners or members of other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups who have relocated to the area. Her research investigated their transition from Year 12 into work or further study, and family and community roles. 

 

Kim Kruger is a lecturer and researcher with Moondani Balluk Academic Centre at Victoria University, Australia. She has a background in community development, community radio broadcasting and Indigenous arts management including film, theatre, visual art and festivals. Kim is undertaking her PhD researching Black Power at the intersection of Aboriginal and South Sea Islander political organisation and has worked in Professor Gary Foley’s Aboriginal History Archive to increase the representation of women in the collection. She is a member of the Warrior Woman Lane Public Art working group, Creative Victoria’s First Peoples’ Directions Circle, Australian Dictionary of Biography Oceania working group and 2021 HDR and ECR symposium co-convenor and media and community engagement for the Australian Association of Pacific Studies. Recently she has contributed to the exhibition Where There’s Smoke, and essays for the monographs DESTINY (National Gallery of Victoria) and Ilbijerri 30 Years. Bold. Black. Brilliant. (Ilbijerri Theatre).