I have been involved in literacy education most of my life as a high school teacher, reading teacher, teacher educator and as a literacy researcher. Now I am an Adjunct Professor in Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology and part-time Research Professor in the School of Education at the University of South Australia. My research has always been concerned with teachers' work, literacy education, poverty and social justice. 

My passion is to find out what pedagogies make a positive durable difference to young people's longterm learner identities and literate repertoires. I love working with teachers in collaborative inquiries. In recent work I have explored the synergies between critical literacy and place conscious pedagogies in linguistically, culturally diverse and high poverty schools.

I love watching three young grandchildren learning all the time.

Luckily for me I also have several terrific research projects on the go right now, including 2 Australian Research Council Projects.

Learning to write: A socio-material analysis of text prodcution, Australian Research Council Discovery Project with, Annette Woods (QUT) and Lisa Kervin (University of Wollongong).

Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools: A longitudinal study of graduates at work in low socio-economic status schools, Australian Research Council Linkage Project, with Bruce Burnett, Jo Lampert, Lutz Hoff (QUT) and Angela Ferguson (DET).