Biography

Dr Melanie Baak is a Senior Lecturer in UniSA Education Futures and the co-convenor of the Migration and Refugee Research Network (MARRNet). She is a member of Research for Educational and Social Inclusion (RESI). Her research and teaching interests broadly cover areas of equity and inclusion, particularly in schools, with a focus on refugee education and resettlement. Her research and teaching are underpinned by understandings of how systems and structures work to marginalise sections of the population, particularly culturally and linguistically diverse groups.

In recent research projects she has collaborated with several refugee background communities recently resettled in Australia to explore themes including; belonging, schooling and education, employment, identity, home, place, transition, family and gender. She is currently a chief investigator on an ARC Linkage study exploring how schools foster refugee student resilience. She has also had consultancies for Catholic Education SA to examine aspects of education for culturally diverse students. She has collaborated on research projects exploring aspects of equity in education including culturally responsive pedagogy and behviour management.

Melanie received the Early Career Researcher Award from the UniSA Division of Education Arts and Social Sciences in 2020. She was awarded an Early Career Researcher award at the Inclusive Education Summit in 2017 for her contributions to refugee education. Melanie received an Australian Government Endeavour Research Fellowship to the University of Glasgow in 2017 during which time she researched schools as sites of resettlement for Syrian refugees in Glasgow. Melanie has had diverse roles in community development, education and research working with refugee background communities over the past 15 years.