Keynote Speakers

Hugh Kearns is recognised internationally as a public speaker, educator and researcher.

His areas of expertise include self-management, positive psychology, work-life balance, learning and creativity. He draws on over twenty five years of experience as a leading training and development professional within the corporate, financial, education and health sectors. He has coached individuals, teams and executives in a wide range of organisations in the public and private sectors. Hugh is widely recognised for his ability to take the latest research in psychology and education and apply it to high-performing people and groups. As a co-author with Maria Gardiner, he has published ten books which are in high demand both in Australia and internationally.

Kathryn Crowe has worked as a speech pathologist, academic, and researcher in a range of early childhood, school-aged, and tertiary settings. She is a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship awardee (2016-2017), University of Iceland Postdoctoral Awardee (2019-2021), and a member of the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech.

Kathryn is associate editor of the journal Speech, Language and Hearing. Kathryn’s research has focused on cultural and linguistic diversity in children with hearing loss and their families and she has worked closely with Professor Sharynne McLeod and Professor Marc Marschark. Kathryn’s current work is exploring linguistic and cognitive factors which inform how we teach DHH learners. She is currently involved with projects examining semantic skills, speech and sign intelligibility, categorization, vision loss, dual sensory loss, and interventions. Her other areas of research interest include speech acquisition in typically hearing children, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), and professional practice.

While completing my PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Otago, I developed an interest in doctoral education. Since then, my teaching and research has focussed on enhancing the doctoral experience both for the supervisors and their students.

Over the last decade, I have developed, disseminated and published on doctoral support, examination and feedback practices. Outside Otago, I am invited regularly to provide expertise and teach on doctoral supervision programmes in Australia, Estonia, Finland, India, Japan, Malaysia, Norway and Sweden. I am a founding member of the International Doctoral Education Research Network.

I am a research educator and started my academic career as an architecture lecturer in 2001, I took up the position of Director of Research Training at ANU in 2013, after working as a research fellow in the School of Graduate Research at RMIT University since 2006.

I created the famous Thesis Whisperer blog, which has had 4.3 million hits in the last five years and has 60,000 followers on email and social media. The blog is the most popular source of advice and a leading influencer for research supervisors and students in the world.

I am known in my field as an innovative and creative scholar, publishing in high-impact journals in my field as well as in a range of other media outlets. I am known internationally for my expertise in research and education, which has resulted in frequent appearances as an expert keynote speaker at conferences, locally and internationally. I comment in the mainstream media, locally and internationally, on research culture and education issues.

Dr. Tseen Khoo is a senior lecturer at La Trobe University and co-founder of the Research Whisperer project. She has also been instrumental in developing the ‘RED Alert’, a blog for all researchers at La Trobe. She has extensive research and research education experience, and been instrumental in creating the field of Asian Australian Studies. She has previously been a grant developer at RMIT University, and research fellow at the University of Queensland (2001-2004) and Monash University (2004-2010).

With her colleague, Jonathan O’Donnell, Tseen created and runs The Research Whisperer, an internationally recognised research culture and development blog. She is the founding (and current) convenor of the Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN: aasrn.wordpress.com), a former editor for Taylor and Francis’ Journal of Intercultural Studies, and a founding editorial advisor for the Australia Council-funded arts and culture magazine, Peril.

Tseen has published on academic research and funding cultures, early career researcher experiences, and critical race studies (particularly focused on Asian Australian cultural production and politics). View Tseen’s Google Scholar profile