Alumni
Dr George (Kev) Dertadian
PhD, Graduated 2016
Thesis title: Painkiller (Ab)use: The Discursive Construction and Lived Experience of Non-medical Consumption.
"ICS is an intellectually stimulating and nurturing place to do postgraduate study – it is a place that encourages the kind of critical thinking that defines the social and cultural research of today."
George (Kev) Dertadian, is a social researcher interested in alcohol and other drugs, the sociology of crime and deviance, and social and cultural theory. During 2011-2016 Kev completed his Doctoral studies at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), Western Sydney University (WSU). During this time he co-convened the Institute’s seminar series and was the Postgraduate Representative on its Higher Degree Research Committee. Kev's thesis was on the topic of the non-medical use of pain medications, an area which he has continued to do much of his research. In 2019 he also published his first book, which was based on doctoral research conducted at ICS and is titled A Fine Line: Painkiller and pleasure in the age of anxiety. Kev is currently a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).
On reflecting about his time at ICS Kev says that "the research training and critical thinking skills I developed at ICS set me up well to work in many and various academic roles" during and since his doctorate. This includes work as an Associate Lecturer at the Kirby Institute for infection and immunity in society, UNSW between 2015-2016 and a Teaching Focussed Role as an Online Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology, WSU between 2016-2018. He notes that "the thoughtful development of programs of workshops and training sessions that drew from the wealth of talent within ICS and work-class guest presenters is a highlight of my time at ICS."
Tayanah O'Donnell
Doctor of Philosophy, 2018
Exploring the Coastal Lawscape: Legal Geographies of Climate Change Adaptation in Two New South Wales Localities.
What I enjoyed most was the freedom and independence to pursue my research.
Tayanah is based at the Australian Academy of Science where she leads the Future Earth Australia initiative, as well as currently Acting as Director of the Science Policy team. She was previously a research fellow at the University of Canberra and is currently an honorary senior lecturer with the climate change institute at the Fenner School for society and environment at the Australian National University. She has published several journal papers in leading international journals, as well as a number of book chapters that span topics such as legal and political geographies, climate change adaptation and property rights, climate law, and land use planning and the public interest, and several research reports and international keynotes. Tayanah is lead author of an edited collection, Legal Geography: Perspectives and Methods, under production with Routledge.
Tayanah’s dissertation explores the legal, political and cultural aspects of coastal climate change adaptation. It won an AMP Tomorrow Maker award in 2017 (with an accompanying grant). Her dissertation, along with her work with local and state governments in Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Queensland, is under contract for two books with Palgrave Macmillan (expected in 2020). She maintains an active, albeit selected, research profile given her demanding day job in the prestigious Australian Academy of Science.
Tayanah says the best things about her PhD experience at ICS was the collegiality of all staff including senior professors and the ability to pursue true interdisciplinary research with real world impact. In particular, her supervisors Donald McNeill and Louise Crabtree, as well as key research staff including Megan Watkins, enabled Tayanah to produce a dissertation that contributes to both academia and to society.
If you want to learn more about our ICS alumni, read an interview (opens in a new window) with two of our recent graduates.
ICS Graduates
| Graduate | Topic | HDR Program | Year |
| Dr Clinton Johnson | Complicating Nation? Examining Federally Funded Touring Exhibition in an Assemblage Framework | PhD | 2023 |
| Dr Emillie Baganz | Cities, Creative Production and Innovation: Home working Mothers in the Cultural and Creative Industries: Navigating Motherhood and work in a Precarious, Neo-liberal economy. | PhD | 2023 |
| Dr Thi Thu Ha Hoang | The Korean Wave in Vietnam: Social Media-Based Fandom, Affect and Cultural Globalisation | PhD | 2023 |
| Dr Christopher Cheng | Australian Migrant Heritage in South China: The Legacy of Diaspora-Funded Schools in Twentieth-Century Zhongshan | PhD | 2023 |
| Dr Helen Barcham | Beyond the 'Docile Subject': Women's Entanglements with Therapy Culture as Ethical Self-Making | PhD | 2023 |
| Dr Utsab Bhattarai | Resilience building: a study of livelihood management practices of the Sherpa people in the Khumbu (Everest) region, Nepal | PhD | 2022 |
| Dr Amrita Limbu | Migration, Emotions, and Affective Family Relations: A Study of Education Migration to Australia and Labour Migration to Qatar from Nepal | PhD | 2022 |
| Dr Kate Naidu | Embodying Intercultural Capacities: An examination of the pedagogic functions of in-country education | PhD | 2022 |
| Dr Cali Prince | Umasking the 4th Space: Collaborative Creativity in Praxis at the Intersection of Artists, People with their Communities, and Institutions | DCR | 2022 |
| Justin Gaudry | MRes | 2022 | |
| Dr Pryor Aldous Placino | Lively Stones: a Study of Informal Sand, Gravel and Rubble Mining in the Philippines | PhD | 2021 |
| Dr Mauricio Novoa | New Pedagogies for Design: Revaluating the Design Artefact for the Post-Industrial Revolution | PhD | 2021 |
| Dr Tsvetelina Hristova | Data infrastructures and digital labour: the case of teleradiology | PhD | 2021 |
| Dr Jasbeer Musthafa Mamalipurath | TEDified Islam: postsecular storytelling in new media | PhD | 2021 |
| Dr Ilia Antenucci | Beyond the Cloud. Security and the Making of Digital Cities in Cape Town and Kolkata | PhD | 2021 |
| Dr Oznur Sahin | City as Stage, City on Stage: Governing the City Through Performances | PhD | 2021 |
| Dr Sajal Roy | Long-term Effects of Extreme Weather Events on Rural Livelihoods and Gender Relations: A Case Study of the Cyclone Aila's Impacts on the Shora (Muslim) and Munda (Hindu) Sundarbans Forest Communities of Bangladesh | PhD | 2021 |
| Elizabeth Gimbard | Cultivating Rice and Identity: an Ethnography of the Dusun People of Sabah Malaysia. | MRes | 2020 |
| Dr Matt Dalziel | What Role Does Socio-economic Status Play in Determining the Digital Information Seeking Behaviours Amongst Year 11 Students Considering Post-secondary Career Options? | PhD | 2020 |
| Dr Alexandra Coleman | The Socio-Cultural Experiences of Students from Western Sydney Who Are the First in Their Family to Attend University | PhD | 2020 |
| Dr Michael Hartup | Self-disclosure Beyond ‘Vulnerability’: Young People, Musical Biographies, Technology and Music-making | PhD | 2019 |
| Paul Kleynjan | Male Activists and Feminism | MRes | 2019 |
| Dr Luke Munn | Approaching Algorithmic Power | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr Andrea Pollio | The Startup of Solidarity. Economic Experts, Social Enterprises and the Reengineering of Humanitarianism in Cape Town | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr Luigi Di Martino | Digital Diplomacy - New Strategies for a Social Public Diplomacy | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr David Spillman | Exploring Collaborative Competence | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr Sky Hugman | Cross-Sector Knowledge Sharing | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr Jian Lin | Creative Labour in the Cultural Industries of China: Self-realisation, Governmentality and Subjectivity (joint award with University of Amsterdam) | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr Nigel Eades | The Impact of Culture and Communication: Living in Immigration Detention | DCR | 2019 |
| Dr Sera Harris | Social Workers and Technology: Rethinking Relationships in Practice | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr Cecilia Hilder | Australian youth-led activist organisations and the everyday shaping of political subjectivities in the digital age. | PhD | 2019 |
| Dr Cecelia Cmielewski | Challenges of Leadership in Arts Policy and Practice in Multicultural Australia. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Christiane Kühling | Rewriting Tourist Photography. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Mithilesh Kumar | State and the Working Class in the Making of the Global Metropolis of Delhi. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Tayanah O'Donnell | Exploring the Coastal Lawscape: Legal Geographies of Climate Change Adaptation in Two New South Wales Localities. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Jack Parkin | Money/Code/Space Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Geographies of Algorithmic Decentralisation. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Harriette Richards | Fashioning Melancholia: A cultural history of sartorial representation in Aotearoa New Zealand. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Hermann Ruiz | Writing Against Terror: a Different Vocabulary for Transitional Justice. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Timothy Ström | Mapping Google Maps: Critiquing an Ideological Vision of the World. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Sebastian Martin Valdez | Communicational Rights and Media Policies in Argentina. | PhD | 2018 |
| Dr Megan Clement-Couzner | Gender and Economic Activism in the Diverse Economy. | PhD | 2017 |
| Dr Neroli Colvin | "…Diversity is Regarded as a Strength and an Asset": Multiculturalism as Understood, Valued and Lived in Two Regional Australian High Schools. | PhD | 2017 |
| Dr Giulia Dal Maso | Risky Expertise in Chinese Financialisation: Haigui Returnee Migrants in the Shanghai Financial Market. | PhD | 2017 |
| Dr Ece Kaya | Transforming Industrial Urban Waterfronts: Industrial Heritage and Tourism. | PhD | 2017 |
| Marina Khan | Contested Ground: Migration Intermediaries Experiences of Network Governance in Australia Migration Industry. | MRes | 2017 |
| Dr Isaac Lyne | Social Enterprise and Community Development: Theory into Practice in Two Cambodian Villages. | PhD | 2017 |
| Dr Joanne McNeill | Enabling Social Innovation Assemblages: Strengthening Public Sector Involvement. | PhD | 2017 |
| Kate Naidu | Issues of 'Interculturality' in Indonesian Language Teaching. | MRes | 2017 |
| Dr Keith Parry | The Bad, The Good, and The Ugly: The Formation of Heroes within the Setting of a New Sports Team. | PhD | 2017 |
| Billy Pringle | Exploring Steven Lukes' 'Three-Dimensional' Theory of Power Through Analysis of Contemporary Australian Policy Discourse. | MRes | 2017 |
| Dr Shanna Robinson | Experimental Travel and Anti-Touristic Encounters. | PhD | 2017 |
| Dr Jen Sherman | Reading Infrastructures in the Contemporary City: a Study of Three Public Libraries in Sydney. | PhD | 2017 |
| Dr Andrea Del Bono | Chinese and Italian Place Brands in Contemporary Sydney: Assembling Ethnicity and/in the City. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr George (Kev) Dertadian | Painkiller (Ab)use: The Discursive Construction and Lived Experience of Non-medical Consumption. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Alejandro Miranda Nieto | Mobilities of Practice: The Circulation of Traditional Music Making Across Mexico and the United States. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Valeria Mikhailovna Pashkova | Arendt's Political Thought: the Relationship Between Truth and Politics. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Louise Ryan | Transcending Boundaries: The Arts of Islam Exhibition: Treasures from the Nassar D. Khalili Collection. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Kearrin Sims | Laos in the Asian Century: Development, Displacement and Chinese Regionalism. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Erika Smith | Kokoda Track: Stori Bilong Waitlain Tasol? (Kokoda Track: Only a Whiteman Story?). | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Deborah Wall | Development, Governance and Indigenous People: Foregrounding the LNG Precinct Case in the Kimberley. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Frances Williamson | Educating RINA: A Study of Generation 1.5 in the Australian Higher Education System. | PhD | 2016 |
| Dr Luh Micke Anggraini | Exploring Balinese Sense of Place: A Tourism Planning Perspective. | PhD | 2015 |
| Dr Diana Collett | Interplay of Cultural, Personal and Contextual Factors in Cross-Cultural Communication. | PhD | 2015 |
| Dr Anne Hurni | A Good Place to Bring up the Kids? Urbanism, Transport and Healthy Child Development in Blacktown (Sydney). | PhD | 2015 |
| Dr Sherene Idriss | The Just-In-Time Self: Young Arab Men, Skills and Narratives of Aspiration in the New Economy. | PhD | 2015 |
| Dr Karin Mackay | Women's Wellbeing Through Creative Arts and Spiritual Practice: Reclaiming a Space for the Emergence of Self Within Community. | PhD | 2015 |
| Dr Ethan Miller | Beyond Economy, Society and Environment: Toward a Politics of Ecological Livelihood in Maine, USA. | PhD | 2015 |
| Dr Pariece Nelligan | Walking the Vocational Tightrope: Narratives of Aspiration in the New Economy. | PhD | 2015 |
| Dr Iqbal Barkat | Gaps in Recognition: Media, Madness, Migration and Terrorism. | PhD | 2014 |
| Dr Benjamin Eltham | Scale and Creative Output in Australian Arts Organisations. | PhD | 2014 |
| Dr Bryn Evans | Commercialising National Identity: A critical examination of New Zealand's America's Cup Campaigns of 1987, 1992 and 1995. | PhD | 2014 |
| Dr Shelley Maher | Working Well with Clients with Borderline Personality Disorder: The Experience of Nurses and Clients. | PhD | 2014 |
| Dr Bettina Rösler | Reimagining Cultural Diplomacy through Cosmopolitan Linkages: Australian Artists-in-Residence in Asia. | PhD | 2014 |
| Dr Jacqueline Willis | A Tale of Two Globalisations: Policy, Culture and Nationalism in Divided Korea. | PhD | 2014 |
| Dr Ryan Al-Natour | Policy and Moral Panic in Australia. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Liliana Correa | The Politics of Cultural Visibility. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Scott East | Global Citizenship: The Agency of the Museum Sector in Climate Change Interventions. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Maria Glaros | A Cultural, Social and Historical Analysis of German, Italian and Japanese Women Living in Australia During WWII. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Christopher Illert | Retrieval of South East Australian Aboriginal folk stories/art/songs and language. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Enda Murray | A Filmic Exploration of Personal Experience in Irish Migration to Australia. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Cathy O'Callaghan | Negotiating the Challenge of Cultural Diversity in Children's Health Care: The Australian Context. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Willem Paling | Mobility, Modernity, Identity: The World in Phnom Penh and Phnom Penh in the World. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Adam Trau | Tourism, Development and World Heritage at Chief Roi Mata's Domain, Vanuatu. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Phillip Wadds | Policing Nightlife: The Representation and Transformation of Security in Sydney's Night-Time Economy. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Michael Wilson | Accumulating Resilience: An investigation of the migration and resettlement experiences of young Sudanese people in the Western Sydney area. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Joanna Winchester | Trends in Community - Arts Collaborations in Greater Western Sydney. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Su Anne Yap | What is status anxiety and how is it defined culturally. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Cheryle Yin Lo | How can we broker and involve communities in research and decision making in natural resource management. | PhD | 2013 |
| Dr Sebastian Byrne | Lessons with Jelena: The Rise of the Female Athlete in the Male Dominated Sporting Environment. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Alejandra Canales-Maldonaldo | Performing Water: A Documentary Fiction on the Cultural Futures of Water. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Fiona Grubb | Emerging Post-Fordism: Deindustrialisation and Transition in the Suburbs. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Hilary (Hongjin) He | Hong Kong Cinema under "One Country, Two Systems": Production, Reception and Policy. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Garth Lean | Transformative Travel: The Socially Mobile De/Construction of Reality. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Georgina McClean | '...And in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society': The Contemporary Role of SBS. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Granaz Moussavi | The Aesthetics of Poetry in Iranian Cinema. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Xiaoying Sheila Qi | Paradoxical Integration: Globalised Knowledge Flows and Chinese Concepts in Social Theory. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Cristina Wulfhorst | Intimate Multiculturalism: blurred boundaries between Brazilians and Australians in Sydney. | PhD | 2012 |
| Dr Nathaniel Bavinton | The Production and Use of Space in the Night-time Economy. | PhD | 2011 |
| Dr Jayde Cahir | Traces of Trust: A study of text messaging in everyday life. | PhD | 2011 |
| Dr Takeshi Hamano | Japanese Women Marriage Migrants Today: Negotiating Gender, Identity and Community in Search of a New Lifestyle in Western Sydney. | PhD | 2011 |
| Dr Ashley Harris | Remember the time when.......: Investigating the associations and connections made by visitors at interpretation sites. | PhD | 2011 |
| Dr Gopal Nair | Rethinking Fiji Coups: Corporate Domination and an Unseen Order. | PhD | 2011 |
| Dr Reena Dobson | 'The Most Cosmopolitan Island under the Sun'? Negotiating Ethnicity and Nationhood in Everyday Mauritius. | PhD | 2010 |
| Dr Justine Humphry | I, Office: Configuring person and place in everyday office computing. | PhD | 2010 |
| Dr Valerie Ingham | The Art of Decision Making. | PhD | 2010 |
| Dr Sarah James | Sharing Sydney Space: Settler, indigenous and migrant heritage on the urban fringe. | PhD | 2010 |
| Dr Jioji Ravulo | The Development of Anti Social Behaviour in Pacific Youth. | PhD | 2010 |
| Dr Mathew Wolnicki | The Contribution of Protected Areas to Quality of Life in Rural and Regional Communities. | PhD | 2010 |
| Dr Beatriz Cardona | Globalisation and the Biopolitics of Ageing. | PhD | 2009 |
| Dr Lynne Spender | The Digital generation and Cultural change. | PhD | 2009 |
| Dr Laura Calderon de la Barca | Bridges of Love: A Healing Journey for Mexican Identities. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Selda Dagistanli | Boys like them: The role of the courts in moral panics surrounding 'Muslim' gang rape. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Brenda Dobia | Shakti Yatra: Women on Pilgrimage to meet the Hindu Goddess of Desire. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Glen Fuller | Modified-Car Culture of Western Sydney. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Jane Kent | Re-inventing the Goddess: Emanations of the Feminine Archetype in the Contemporary World. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Ngaire McCubben | Living Cultural Diversity in Regional Australia: An Account of the Town of Griffith. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Jane Mills | Re-imagining Hollywood: global, national and local cinemas and the circulation of ideas. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Josna Pankhania | Personal and inter-cultural processes associated with yoga practice in Australia and in India. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Colin Sheringham | The Relationship of Leisure Time to Food Habits. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Shane Smithers | The Evolution of Ideas and their Function: a general theory of ideology. | PhD | 2008 |
| Dr Kaaren Blom | Rhetorics of risk: negotiating meaning in the public domain. | PhD | 2007 |
| Dr Susie Goff | The value of participatory practice to sustainability: a constructivist inquiry into participatory knowledge generating practices. | PhD | 2007 |
| Dr Aneela Babar | Living Room Seminaries: Negotiating religious networks, gendered selves and intercommunal relationships within the Pakistani diaspora. | PhD | 2006 |
| Dr Barbara Bloch | "Unsettling Zionism" - Diasporic Consciousness and Australian Jewish Community Identities. | PhD | 2006 |
| Dr Tanja Dreher | From indifference to working in indifference: News and cultural diversity in Western Sydney. | PhD | 2006 |
| Dr Mitzi Goldman | Hatred - The Psycho-Political Perspective. | PhD | 2006 |
| Dr Wendy Holland | Performing Multiple Identities: The Complexities of an Aboriginal Family History. | PhD | 2006 |
| Dr Meredith Jones | Makeover Culture: Landscapes of Cosmetic Surgery. | PhD | 2006 |
| Ryan Sengara | Redfern Kids Connect - Technology and Empowerment. | PhD | 2006 |
| Dr Dinesh Wadiwel | Lubricity: Power, Sovereign Violence and Erotic Hope. | PhD | 2006 |
| Dr Claudia Magallanes Blanco | A dialogic approach to video activism as a conscious raising agent. Mexico and independent videos on the Zapatista rebellion. | PhD | 2005 |
| Dr Daniel Cunningham | The 'Film' on Whiteness: depicting white trash in U.S. film, 1973-2003. | PhD | 2004 |
| Dr W R Langenbach | Performance Indicators: Performing the Singapore State 1988-1994. | PhD | 2004 |
| Dr Ingrid Richardson | Telebodies/Televisions: Corporeality and Agency in Technoculture - a critical analysis of televisual and new media technologies. | PhD | 2004 |
| Dr Cristina Rocha | Zen in Brazil: The Quest for Cosmopolitan Modernity. | PhD | 2004 |
| Dr Selvaraj Velayutham | Responding to Globalisation: Nation, Culture and Identity in Singapore. | PhD | 2004 |
| Dr Tony Webb | Towards a Mature Shame Culture. | PhD | 2004 |
| Dr Amanda Wise | No Longer in Exile: Shifting experiences of home, homeland and identity for East Timorese in Australia. | PhD | 2003 |
