I am a Professor at Western Sydney University within The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development at Westmead. At undergraduate level I currently teach into the School of Health Sciences and contribute to curriculum development in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts. I currently supervise 8 Higher Degree Research candidates (Honours, Master of Research and PhD candidates). I currently serve on the University's Senate Education Committee as representative for the University's research institutes.

My research interests span: parents' roles in early interaction and assessment, language technology for non-technical users (community members, teachers, nurses, aged carestaff), and language revitalisation especially dictionary and evaluation research. My research has typically been undertaken in large interdisciplinary teams and in collaboration with external organisations in community, education and health sectors. Across my career I have collaborated with speech pathologists, nurses, special education teachers, classroom teachers, and community members especially through families, and am keenly aware and respectful of their perspectives and priorities in the research that we choose to do together. I bring a basic and applied science background in research in linguistics (phonetics/phonology, first and second language learning and loss, language variation and change, and language assessment) as well as expertise within culturally and linguistically diverse communities in codesign of tools, strategies and technologies that support communication, and experience in the evaluation of such initiatives with end-users. As a researcher at Western Sydney University, a large multi-campus public institution based in one of the most dynamic and diverse urban regions of Australia, I am well aware of the challenges facing families and professionals navigating education and health services originally designed for a smaller and less diverse population. I make it a priority in my research to listen to these needs and contribute my expertise to well-motivated, evidence-based initiatives to improve educational and health outcomes for children and older adults.