Research with us
Join CRADLE and research with us. Annually we offer two ways to further your academic career and help us with our research. For students we offer a PhD Scholarship and for Deakin academics we offer Fellowships.
Rola Ajjawi
Professor Rola Ajjawi has a Bachelor’s Honours Degree in Physiotherapy and worked as a physiotherapist and clinical educator before moving into academia full-time.
Rola conducts research into work-integrated learning, assessment and feedback, evaluative judgement, professional identity formation, and student engagement, failure and persistence. Rola is one of the top Australian researchers in these fields.
Rola is Deputy Editor of the journal Medical Education and on the editorial board of Teaching in Higher Education.
David Boud
Deakin Distinguished Professor David Boud is Co-Director of CRADLE.
Professor Boud is also Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Professor of Work and Learning at Middlesex University. He is Australia’s most internationally renowned educational researcher in higher education. He is a global leader in the fields of higher education, workplace learning, and assessment and feedback.
His work is used both by researchers and scholars committed to the development of teaching and learning and he has changed the foundations of assessment practice through pioneering research and development.
Phill Dawson
Professor Phill Dawson is Co-Director of CRADLE.
Professor Dawson holds a PhD in Higher Education and a first-class honours degree in Computer Science. He also has over a decade of university teaching experience and he has been awarded four university-level teaching awards and a citation from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
Phill researches assessment in higher education, focusing on feedback and cheating, predominantly in digital learning contexts. His 2021 book Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World explores how cheating is changing and what educators can do about it.
Margaret Bearman
Professor Margaret Bearman is CRADLE’s Professor of Research. Margaret holds a first class honours degree in computer science and a PhD in medical education.
Margaret’s interests are broad ranging and include assessment in university education, feedback in healthcare contexts, simulation and learning in a digital world.
Recognition for her work includes Program Innovation awards from the Australian Office of Learning and Teaching and Simulation Australasia.
Joanna Tai
Associate Professor Joanna Tai has a background in higher and health professions education.
Joanna’s research interests include student perspectives on learning and assessment from university to the workplace, peer-assisted learning, feedback, assessment literacy, developing capacity for evaluative judgement and research synthesis.
Helen Walker
Dr Helen Walker is CRADLE’s Research Manager. Helen assists the team with their research as well as manages CRADLE’s popular Seminar Series, International Symposia, and publications.
Jaclyn Broadbent
Professor Jaclyn Broadbent is Pro-Vice Chancellor, Academic Experience, a Professor of Psychology and a member of CRADLE. Jaclyn’s background is multidisciplinary, with PhDs in Psychology (2011) and Education (2021).
Jaclyn’s leadership has been acknowledged through prestigious awards for innovative teaching practices, including Deakin Teacher of the Year (twice), an AAUT Teaching Excellence Award, and a Citation.
Jaclyn’s research focuses on online self-regulated learning as well as the development, evaluation, and translation of effective online teaching strategies to ensure student success.
Kevin Dullaghan
Kevin Dullaghan is an Associate Research Fellow with CRADLE. Kevin assists the team with their research and manages the CRADLE Blog, website, and newsletter.
Kevin is interested in all areas of higher education research, particularly conducting surveys and interviews, identifying trends, and managing data. He first started with CRADLE looking into the murky world of contract cheating.
Jack Walton
Jack Walton is a Research Fellow within CRADLE. He holds a Bachelor of Music, and his PhD developed a theorisation of assessment in university music education.
His main research interests include assessment, judgement, and creative practice.
Laura Hughes
Dr Laura Hughes is an Associate Research Fellow and has a background in biomedical sciences, psychology and addictions.
Laura has research interests in feedback literacy, behaviour change and broadly higher education teaching and learning. Laura is currently working on the ARC Discovery Project Feedback literacy for effective learning at university and beyond.
Nicole Crawford
Nicole Crawford is a Senior Research Fellow, currently working on several research projects at CRADLE. She was an Equity Fellow at the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) and an educator in pre-degree programs at the University of Tasmania.
Nicole’s research interests include equity and inclusion in higher education, student and staff mental wellbeing, and enabling education.
Thomas Corbin
Dr Thomas Corbin is a Research Fellow and has recently joined the CRADLE team from Macquarie University, where he was a lecturer in the Philosophy Department.
His main research focus is on Education and Assessment Design at the intersection of Generative Artificial Intelligence and Work. In his spare time, he conducts research on Australian species of Cicada.
Juuso Nieminen
Juuso Nieminen is a Senior Research Fellow with CRADLE and has been collaborating with CRADLE since his PhD candidature in 2018 at the University of Helsinki.
Juuso focuses on the social, cultural, and political dimensions of educational assessment. This includes student agency, assessment design and student identity formation. Juuso’s work also covers inclusion, diversity, and belonging in higher education. He is particularly interested in examining how assessment takes shape, and shapes people, in a social world.
Paige Mahoney
Paige Mahoney is a Research Fellow at CRADLE. She holds a first-class honours degree in Professional and Creative Writing and History.
Paige has worked on a range of research projects examining pedagogical and professional issues in higher education, including sessional academic staff, assessment feedback, inclusive pedagogies, and academic identity. Her own research explores the complex intersections between history and fiction, gender and memory, and regional and national identities.