Associate Professor Deirdre Tedmanson

Hi there! Before working in the School of Social Work and Social Policy I was a lecturer in what is now known as the David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research. My experience prior to academe has included work in community development, research, policy and management positions in both the community sector and State Government, as well as working in Australia's Commonwealth Parliament as a senior political adviser. I've taught in many of the courses across the School of Social Work and Social Policy and the courses I currently co-ordinate are listed below. As well as lecturing in the School I'm currently the SA research leader for Core Project 5: Desert Services that Work - Demand Responsive Services to Desert Settlements for the Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre based in Alice Springs. In my work for the CRC I'm part of a national team of researchers located across 4 regions in the NT, WA, Qld and SA, involved in analysing the service delivery system in desert communities at the interface between demand and supply, identifying critical issues and strategies for change through the design of technology-based service delivery models with the aim of improving the service system. I'm an associate researcher for the Hawke Research Institute for Sustanaible Societies and actively involved with both its Social Policy Research Group and Centre for Postcolonial and Globalization Studies. In addition to my lecturing and research interests with UniSA and the DKCRC, I'm a Research Scholar with the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University where I'm completing a PhD in political science and public policy. In 2001, with School colleague Harry Savelsberg, I won the Chancellor’s UniSA Community Service Award for contribution to collaborative Indigenous and multicultural research. In September 2007 I was featured as Researcher of the Month and later that same year honoured to receive the Division Research Award for Community Engagement. Finally in this introduction, I'd like to share with you a little of the values that animate my teaching and research activities: I passionately believe, as Freire (1985) tells us, that 'besides being an act of knowing, education is a political act'. As academics we have a unique privilege, a special opportunity and a gentle but constant duty to ourselves and to each other to pursue excellence, fun and social justice in all areas of our scholarship!

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy The Australian National University

• Master of Policy and Administration Flinders University

• Bachelor of Arts Flinders University