Our Team

TJ Ryan Foundation is entirely operated by volunteers, all of whom are academics or policy experts. If you’d like to get in touch with our team, or if you’re interested in getting involved and contributing to progressive evidence-based policy for a better Queensland, please contact us.

Our Executive

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Dr. Mary Crawford AM

Executive Director and Chair

Dr Mary Crawford was a high school teacher for 20 years during which time she taught in Australia, U

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Veronica Horgan

Secretary/Treasurer

Veronica is a Project Officer in the School of Psychology and Counselling at the Queensland Universi

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Chris Salisbury has a doctorate in Political History from the University of Queensland, conferred in

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Dr. Mary Crawford AM

Executive Director and Chair

Dr Mary Crawford was a high school teacher for 20 years during which time she taught in Australia, UK and Cyprus. In 1987 she was elected to the House of Representatives as the MP for Forde and remained there as a member of the government until 1996. During her time in the Australian Parliament she led the Crawford Committee which developed and implemented a National Policy on Child Care and established the Child Care Accreditation Council. She was instrumental in ensuring child care centres became part of tertiary institutions in Australia on University and TAFE campuses. Dr Crawford was also responsible for the ‘Sticks and Stones’ Report which examined violence in schools and sought to establish a National policy. Her work also led to the implementation of the National JET (Jobs, Education, and Training) scheme for women re-entering the workforce and she developed and implemented the first ‘women only’ job clubs in Australia. These gave individual case workers for women entering or re-entering the workforce. From 1994-1996 she was also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for Local Government. In 1997 Dr Crawford was employed at Queensland University of Technology as a Lecturer in Government/Business relations in the School of Management within the Faculty of Business. She developed and redesigned courses for students in both Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes. She also taught for QUT in China, in both Suzhou and Hong Kong. Dr Crawford was awarded her PhD in 2008 for work on ‘Gender and the Australian Parliament’ where she explored the way in which the Australian parliament is gendered as male but much of its processes and practices remain hidden. In January 2020 she was awarded Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to women, and to the people and Parliament of Australia. Dr Crawford was appointed Executive Director of the TJ Ryan Foundation in April 2017, succeeding Professor Roger Scott.

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Veronica Horgan

Secretary/Treasurer

Veronica is a Project Officer in the School of Psychology and Counselling at the Queensland University of Technology

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Dr Chris Salisbury

Editor

Chris Salisbury has a doctorate in Political History from the University of Queensland, conferred in 2013 after his PhD thesis examined the policy history of the Beattie government's 'Smart State' strategy. Chris held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Centre for the Government of Queensland at the University of Queensland from 2013-15, and from 2009-15 was involved in the Centre's 'Queensland Speaks' oral history project as researcher and interviewer. Since 2014 he has taught Australian history at the University of Queensland, and has lately researched under-embargo Cabinet Minutes for Queensland State Archives prior to the documents' public release. Chris has published numerous journal articles and commentaries on Queensland politics and history.

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Our Board

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Dr Robert Anderson OAM is a well respected Ngugi Elder from Mulgumpin in Quandamooka, South East Que

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Tom Cochrane

Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law Queensland University of Technology

Professor Tom Cochrane AM is Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Techn

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Deanna Grant-Smith

Deputy Director, Centre for Decent Work and Industry Queensland University of Technology

Associate Professor Deanna Grant-Smith holds a PhD in public consultation and policy analysis and is

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Kieran Gregory

Sessional Academic, Queensland University of Technology

Kieran Gregory is a Sessional Academic with the Queensland University of Technology's Business Schoo

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Bruce Hawker

Managing Director of Bruce Hawker Consulting

Bruce Hawker is the Managing Director of Bruce Hawker Consulting. For the last forty years he has wo

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Erin O'Brien

ARC DECRA Fellow, School of Justice Queensland, University of Technology

Dr Erin O’Brien is an Associate Professor and ARC DECRA Fellow in the School of Justice, Queenslan

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Mary Sheehan AO

Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology

Emeritus Professor Mary Sheehan retired from the directorship of CARRS-Q on 30 June 2008, but contin

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Giovanni Sottile

Health Organiser, Together Queensland

Giovanni (Gianni) Sottile is a union official, and has worked on climate and energy policy in Queens

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Elizabeth van Acker

Senior Lecturer, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University

Dr Liz van Acker is a Senior Lecturer, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith Bu

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Uncle Bob Anderson

Patron

Dr Robert Anderson OAM is a well respected Ngugi Elder from Mulgumpin in Quandamooka, South East Queensland and currently lives in Brisbane. Since Native Title for the for Quandamooka Nation was recognised on the 4th July 2011 by the High Court of Australia, he has been a Family Representative on the prescribed body corporate, Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation, QYAC, established to progress the native title interests of the Quandamooka Peoples. He is well known for both striving to progress and protect the rights of workers through the trade union movement and for his efforts to maintain and promote the reconciliation process as an Aboriginal Elder and currently as a member and delegate of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.. Known as Uncle Bob, he served as a trade union delegate and State Organiser for the Building Workers Industrial Union from 1951 to 1978 and has been recognised as an Honorary Member of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.

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  • 07 3138 5016
  • t.cochrane@qut.edu.au

Tom Cochrane

Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law Queensland University of Technology

Professor Tom Cochrane AM is Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Technology where he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Technology, Information and Learning Support) until retirement at the end of 2013. He serves on a number of Boards and projects including the Library Board of Queensland, Queensland Poetry, the Australian Digital Alliance and others. He was co-leader of the Creative Commons Project for which QUT was the institutional leader for Australia. This, together with other open access initiatives, signals Tom's long-standing commitment to access to knowledge, and to research outputs worldwide. His academic research in earlier years focused on Queensland in the time of Premiers Ryan and Theodore.

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Deanna Grant-Smith

Deputy Director, Centre for Decent Work and Industry Queensland University of Technology

Associate Professor Deanna Grant-Smith holds a PhD in public consultation and policy analysis and is Deputy Director of the Centre for Decent Work and Industry at the Queensland University of Technology. She has more than 20 years of experience conducting research and providing policy and strategy advice across the areas of environmental policy, participatory planning, community engagement, and organisational strategy and development. Deanna has extensive experience in developing and delivering consultative approaches for a range of issues including transport and infrastructure planning, and environmental policy review, and has conducted and supervised a range of research activities to inform strategic evidence-based decision-making. Within a government setting these include research into: boating activity in high growth areas; Indigenous boating safety; transport needs and disadvantage; and risk management approaches in regulatory regimes. Deanna currently researches stakeholder engagement with a focus on marginalised or disadvantaged groups, particularly young people and women, and cultural and political engagements with sustainability particularly those associated with waste. She also explores the potential for exploitation and exclusion presented by unpaid work and emerging forms of unpaid and unwaged work.

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  • kieran.gregory@qut.edu.au

Kieran Gregory

Sessional Academic, Queensland University of Technology

Kieran Gregory is a Sessional Academic with the Queensland University of Technology's Business School. Kieran has extensive public sector experience across Queensland and New South Wales, working in a wide range of policy related roles. He is particularly interested in integrity related issues within the public sector. Kieran holds a Bachelor of Business (with Distinction) and a Master of Business (Research). He has published on areas including public policy, stakeholder engagement and sustainability.

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Bruce Hawker

Managing Director of Bruce Hawker Consulting

Bruce Hawker is the Managing Director of Bruce Hawker Consulting. For the last forty years he has worked at the highest levels of government and politics in Australia. After graduating from the University of Queensland in 1977 with a BA in Government, he moved to Sydney to study law. Thereafter he served as a ministerial adviser to the NSW Attorney-General in the Wran Government and later as Chief of Staff to Opposition Leader and later Premier, Bob Carr. In 1997, he established Hawker Britton, Australia’s leading campaign and government relations firm. Bruce has worked on more than forty political campaigns in Australia and abroad, including the elections of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Bob Carr, Peter Beattie, Anna Bligh, Steve Bracks, Jim Bacon, Mike Rann, Geoff Gallop and Clare Martin. Bruce is a published author, public speaker, documentary maker and regular commentator in the electronic and print media.

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  • 07 3138 7103
  • erin.obrien@qut.edu.au

Erin O'Brien

ARC DECRA Fellow, School of Justice Queensland, University of Technology

Dr Erin O’Brien is an Associate Professor and ARC DECRA Fellow in the School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology. Her research examines political activism, advocacy, and participation with a focus on political consumerism. Dr O'Brien's current research examines the political mobilisation of consumers, shareholders and investors on a range of social justice issues including modern slavery and environmental degradation. Her Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship (2021-2024) titled 'Australian civil society combating modern slavery with ethical consumerism' examines the shift in the framing of responsibility between the state, civil society, and corporate actors, and the norm adoption of ethical consumerism as a solution to complex multi-jurisdictional issues. Dr O'Brien is concerned with studying the interplay between activists and the state in the construction of knowledge and formation of policy, with research interests in the areas of political activism, advocacy and resistance; political consumerism, shareholder activism, ethical consumption; tactics and influence of political interest groups; political narrative and storytelling; and modern slavery and human trafficking.

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  • 07 3138 4549
  • m.sheehan@qut.edu.au

Mary Sheehan AO

Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology

Emeritus Professor Mary Sheehan retired from the directorship of CARRS-Q on 30 June 2008, but continues her research and postgraduate mentoring and activities at the Centre. Professor Sheehan’s specific area of research interest is the application of social psychological theory to educational and rehabilitation initiatives to enhance community road safety, particularly the safety of young people, and in reducing the incidence of drink driving. This has resulted in some of CARRS-Q’s most successful and innovative road safety programs such as: the development of the seminal Under the Limit (UTL) Drink Driving Rehabilitation Program a trial of alcohol ignition interlocks with high-risk Queensland drink drivers (UTL 2) the Rural and Remote Road Safety Research project in North Queensland the Skills for Preventing Injury in Youth (SPIY) school-based first aid and peer protection program. Mary has received international recognition for her work in alcohol, drugs and traffic safety through ministerial and executive appointments such as the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS) and the United States Academy of Science Transportation Research Board (TRB). She is a foundation member of the Australian College of Road Safety (ACRS), and was awarded a Fellowship in 2000 for her contribution and commitment to road safety. Professor Sheehan was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for service to education and to public health through research work into the causes and prevention of road, work and social accidents in Australia, and through the development of community awareness programs raising the level of debate in the area.

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Giovanni Sottile

Health Organiser, Together Queensland

Giovanni (Gianni) Sottile is a union official, and has worked on climate and energy policy in Queensland. As Convener of the Labor Environment Action Network for 5 years, Gianni led campaigns within the ALP which won the creation of Clean Co, a publicly owned renewable energy generator with $2 billion dollars of state money to invest in new projects. As a union official, he has led strategy to organise low-paid workers in growing sectors of the economy, including community pharmacy. Gianni has experience on the management committee of several organisations, and has been involved in training and adult education for political and workers’ campaigns. He has a Bachelor of Arts with 1st Class Honours in History from the University of Queensland.

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  • 07 3735 7696
  • e.vanacker@griffith.edu.au

Elizabeth van Acker

Senior Lecturer, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University

Dr Liz van Acker is a Senior Lecturer, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith Business School. She has an Honours degree from the School of Humanities at Griffith University and a PhD from the Department of Government at the University of Queensland. She was one of the Chief Investigators of a project funded by an Australian Learning and Teaching Grant (2010-2012). This project provided a national study of capstone subjects. Her research interests include innovation and industry policy, relationship support programs and government policies, gender and politics and service delivery by the third sector.

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