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The CPOW is a growing collaboration between passionate, engaged and diverse values-driven researchers.

The centre comprises approximately eighty members and is governed by an Executive.

CPOW is a growing collaboration between passionate, engaged and diverse values-driven researchers investigating issues of fairness, equality, sustainability and social justice in the world of work.

Leadership

Research Theme Leaders

Work of Social Care

Diversity & Inclusion

Gender & Equality

Gender & Equality

Digital Work & Society

Digital Work & Society

Members

CPOW has an active academic membership. We are always interested in hearing from researchers whose research aligns with the CPOW mission of identifying the conditions for fairness and equality in the world of work and/or amplifying the voices of those undertaking work and their collective organisations. Please complete this form if you are interested in joining.

HDR Members

Our Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students undertake their research under the supervision of our research staff and members, investigating issues of fairness, equality, sustainability and social justice in the world of work. If you supervise or are a HDR student who would like to join CPOW as a member, we encourage you to complete this form.

Sadaf Sagheer is a PhD candidate in the School of Economics, Finance & Marketing. Her research focuses on gender structures and inequalities in marketing practices.

Through a multiple-method qualitative research approach Sadaf’s research focuses on children’s toy markets and aims to understand how gender structures in children’s toys act as an agent of gender socialisation for young children and how the gender dichotomy in children’s markets can be challenged.

Sadaf has a Masters and a Bachelors of Business Administration in Marketing.

Thesis Beyond Pink Trucks: Undoing Gender Socialisation through marketing of children’s toys

Supervisors Dr Lauren Gurrieri, Dr Torgeir Aleti

Hazel Sims is a PhD candidate with the School of Management at RMIT University. Her work contributes to understanding the potentially positive role of militancy in the Women’s Social and Political Union (“WSPU”) through a study of its organisational structure, style and operating mechanisms.

Through a multi-method research design, this project uses a feminist historical method. Pieced together, like a mosaic, a feminist perspective of the artefacts about the WSPU will provide a clearer picture of how the organisation operated as a militant, feminist organisation. 

Teaching for more than two decades, Hazel has worked in Perth and Melbourne. Her academic background is in political science and PR. She hopes her work engages with the ideas of people’s activism today through the experiences of the earlier feminists.

Thesis How the Women’s Social and Political Union in Great Britain (1903-1914) operated as a militant, feminist organisation

Supervisors Dr Meagan Tyler, Prof. Cathy Brigden, and Dr Fiona Macdonald 

Lisa Heap is a labour lawyer who advises unions, business and government on strategies to achieve gender equality at work.  She formally held senior positions within the union movement.

Gender-based violence substantially impacts on the wellbeing of workers who experience it and those that observe it.  This study is a feminist socio-legal analysis examining new regulatory approaches that may promote the primary prevention of gender-based violence at work.

This research employs qualitative methods in a multi-level approach with empirical research drawing on policy and regulatory analysis, as well as the development of an in-depth case study focussed on recent developments in the state of Victoria, Australia.

Thesis Understanding and overcoming the barriers to ending gendered violence at work: the role of regulation and workplace culture. 

Supervisors Dr Fiona Macdonald, Dist. Prof. Sara Charlesworth

Jenny Malone is a PhD candidate in the School of Management. Jenny’s research is focussed on the experiences of women in low-waged work and the institutional framework of minimum wages. 

Drawing on her current role as a researcher in the School of Management, Work of Social Care theme and previous employment at the Fair Work Commission, Jenny’s research interests focus on the intersection of employment regulation, gender, social policy and the work of care.

Jenny was a qualified social worker and has worked in various research roles in the not for profit, government and academic sectors for 15 years.

Thesis The economic well-being of women in low paid, precarious work – the experiences of Australian care and support workers in home and community services.

Supervisors Dr Fiona Macdonald, Dist. Prof. Sara Charlesworth

Laura McVey is a PhD candidate in the School of Economics, Finance & Marketing at RMIT University. Her doctoral research is concerned with the ways in which markets and marketing are implicated in the production of violence against women and gender inequality.

Through qualitative research, Laura’s thesis with publications project is specifically looking to understand some of the newer practices of the (online) pornography market, including how these online business models operate, and the intersections this has with oppressive and violent forms of work for women.

Laura has an employment background in the not-for-profit sector, supporting women impacted by family violence and sexual assault, as well as working in government, academic and corporate research roles. She also has a Master of Marketing and a Master of Arts (Literature and Writing). 

Thesis Dark Dynamics: exploring the production of harm in the online pornography market 

Supervisors Dr Lauren Gurrieri and Dr Meagan Tyler

Monica O’Dwyer is a PhD candidate in the School of Global Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University. Monica’s research explores the experiences of non-English-speaking background migrant workers in the aged care and childcare sectors in Australia.

Building on her previous work in the migration-settlement sector, Monica’s qualitative study focuses on skilled and partner migrants with professional occupational backgrounds who take up low paid frontline care work. She is interested in how gendered migration, settlement, and care regimes shape their career choices and experiences of work in Australia.

Monica has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Public Health and has worked in a range of research roles in government and academic settings and is a teaching associate and tutor at the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health at Monash University.

Thesis Who cares? The occupational transitions of migrant women into childcare and aged-care work in Australia

Thanh-Hang Pham is a PhD student in the School of Business and Management, RMIT Vietnam. Through a multi-method research design, Hang’s research investigates the reasons behind the decisions of job mobility amongst academics in Vietnam. Before starting the PhD journey, Hang worked as a lecturer, entrepreneur,  marketing professional, and freelancer, to name a few. Her career reflects a protean career orientation, in which an individual takes control of his or her career by exercising self-direction with a focus on intrinsic values. The genuine interest in career development and particularly protean career orientation is the inspiration for her PhD research.

Thesis Determinants of academic mobility in Vietnam higher education sector

Supervisors Dr Nuno Ribeiro and Dr Jung Woo Han

Shirley Tay is a PhD candidate with the School of Management at RMIT University. 

Her qualitative research revolves around the lived experiences of recent migrants in Australian workplaces and how their intersecting identities influence how they perceive workplace inclusion. She is passionate about making sure the voices of recent migrants are heard, so that a deeper understanding of their workplace experiences is achieved.

A migrant herself, Shirley has worked in the private and public sector in both Melbourne and Canberra. Before coming to Australia in 2009, she was employed with the Ministry of Education in Singapore. Apart from her PhD research, Shirley has been a tutor, marker and research assistant within RMIT University and is tutoring in Organisational Analysis and Contemporary Management: Issues and Challenges.

Thesis Intersectionality and recent migrants’ experiences of inclusion in the Australian workplace.

Supervisors Prof. Darryn Snell, Dr Shea Fan

Federico Angelo Triolo is a PhD candidate in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing whose research explores consumer culture, icons, and sustainability. Federico is currently researching the Australian coffee market. 

Thesis The Metamorphosis of an Iconic Product: Coffee 

Supervisors Associate Professor Bernardo Figueiredo, Professor Diane Martin, Professor Francis Farrelly

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