Keynote Speakers
Ms Maria Vamvakinou MP, Federal Member for Calwell
Representing the Hon. Julia Gillard MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education
A community leader and long-time advocate for Melbourne northern suburbs Maria grew up and was educated in Melbourne's northern suburbs. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne and was a teacher in Political Science and Greek language at a northern suburbs school before working with various members of Parliament. This included a year with former premier Joan Kirner.
Since being elected Maria has pursued issues in health and education. Maria has an interest in issues related to Australia’s multicultural identity and the Australian Republic. In December 2002 – the year of women of the Greek Diaspora - Maria was recognised by the Greek government as a member of the Greek Diaspora who had succeeded in her chosen field. Maria was also invited to Thessalonica in December 2002 to speak on the Olympic Games with particular reference to volunteers.
Maria has had a long-standing association with the Greek community of Melbourne and was co-ordinator of the Greek Festival in 1981 and 1982.
Maria is the first Greek-born woman to enter the Federal Parliament of Australia.
Prof Peter Høj
Vice-Chancellor and President, University of South Australia
Professor Høj was educated at the University of Copenhagen majoring in biochemistry and chemistry. He arrived in Australia in 1987, and held appointments at La Trobe University and the University of Adelaide before being appointed CEO of the Australian Research Council. Other appointments have been to the Australian Wine Research Institute, the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council; the Cooperative Research Centres Committee; and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Committees. Professor Høj speaks several languages.
Prof Kent Anderson
Australian National University
Kent Anderson is a comparative lawyer specialising in Japan. He is Director of the Faculty of Asian Studies in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific and holds a joint appointment with the ANU College of Law.
Kent has an eclectic background, having completed tertiary studies in Japan, US, and UK, and working first as a marketing manager with a US regional airline, then as a practicing commercial lawyer in Hawaii, and, before joining ANU, as associate professor at Hokkaido University School of Law. He has also been a visiting professor at Waseda, Nagoya, and Chuo Universities in Japan.
In addition to private international law and insolvency, he teaches a variety of Japanese law courses including a cross-listed introductory course, an advanced seminar, a language course on reading Japanese legal materials, a moot arbitration and negotiation in Japan course, and an intensive graduate course in Kyoto.
His research has focused on Japanese insolvency, conflict of laws, and recently the introduction of Japan’s new quasi-jury system (saiban-in seido).
Dr Simone Battiston
Cassamarca lecturer in Italian, Swinburne University
Dr Simone Battiston is the Cassamarca Lecturer in Italian at Swinburne. This position is partly sponsored by the Fondazione Cassamarca, which is associated with the the bank Cassa di Risparmio della Marca Trevigiana operating in the province of Treviso in Italy, in order to support the activities undertaken in the areas of Italian, European Studies and International Business at Swinburne.
Simone came to Australia in 2000. He is a history graduate from the University of Trieste (Italy). Recently, he completed his PhD in Italian Migration Studies at La Trobe University. Excerpts from his doctoral dissertation on the history and collective memory of the Italian migrant organisation FILEF of Melbourne have been published in the Journal of Australian Studies and the Australian newspaper The Age. His research interests include the migrant political and socio-economic contribution to post-war Australia, Italian-Australian community history, and dual citizenship and voting rights.
Prof Kerry Dunne
Academic Director, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of new England
Assoc Prof Cathie Elder
Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Melbourne University
Dr Louise Jansen
Australian National University
Dr Louise Jansen is a lecturer in the Applied Linguistics and German Studies Programs in the School of Language Studies. She is also Overseas Studies Coordinator and Convenor of the German Studies Program. Dr Jansen is interested in data-based theoretical research on second language acquisition in naturalistic and instructed settings. With respect to theory she is particularly interested in explanations of second language development and in relationships between theory and data. Dr Jansen's empirical work is conducted in the framework of Processability Theory and applied to the acquisition of German. A recent new direction in her research interests is in the relationship between explicit and implicit modes in second language acquisition.
Prof Mike Levy
School of Languages and Linguistics, Griffith University
Professor Mike Levy is Head of the School of Languages and Linguistics at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. His principal interest in teaching and research is Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and he has published widely in the field. His recent books include CALL Dimensions with Glenn Stockwell (Erlbaum, 2006) and Teacher Education in CALL with Philip Hubbard (Benjamins, 2006). He is Associate Editor of the CALL and CALL-EJ Online journals and on the Editorial Boards of the CALICO and ReCALL Journals.
Prof Tony Liddicoat
University of South Australia
Program Director for the BA in Applied Languages and Intercultural Communication. Issues Editor, Currrent Issues in Language Planning. Research interests: Language planning and policy; Language and culture in education; Discourse analysis; Intercultural language teaching and learning.
Dr Alexandra Ludewig
University of Western Australia
Alexandra Ludewig (Dr habil.) is the Associate Dean (Education) in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Western Australia. Her academic background is in German and European Studies. Her research interests
include questions of Heimat and identity in European film and contemporary
German speaking literature.
Dr Philip Mahnken
University of Sunshine Coast
Dr Phillip Mahnken began his professional life as a school teacher in the Education Department of Tasmania in 1975. He spent one year in Europe and a year working in Indonesia before undertaking Master of Education Studies with an emphasis on Applied Linguistics. He has always loved the challenge of improving Australia's performance in the study of foreign languages and cultures.
Philip's research interests moved from languages policy formulation to Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in the 1990's. He completed a PhD in 2002 on student perceptions of second language knowledge, interaction and motivation in a CALL environment. Besides developing online multimedia resources, he has recently been exploring online audio-conferencing as an international language learning medium. Summer periods are given to supervision of the intensive in-country program in Lombok, Indonesia.
In 2006, a consortium of Indonesian language lecturers at four Australian universities and Universitas Mataram in Lombok won substantial funding from the Commonwealth's CASR Fund and from the Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) to re-design Indonesian language and culture curricula in three modes: on-campus, online and in-country. The model of collaboration is as important as the teaching resources and methods and will be significant for all university language teaching in Australia. Phillip Mahnken is Chief Curriculum Designer and the Curriculum Development office is housed in USC's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
Dr Roald Maliangkay
The Australian National University
Dr Maliangkay [BA/MA Leiden Univ.; PhD SOAS, London] convenes the Korean language program and the Faculty's graduate programs. He specialises in Korea's cultural industries, with a major focus on music and entertainment industries in the early and mid-twentieth century.
Dr Christopher Mann
James Cook University
Chris Mann teaches French at James Cook University. He is the de facto ‘Head of Languages’, a position without remuneration and without official recognition. James Cook University teaches five languages across two campuses, mostly in a blended mode in cooperation with the University of New England. Chris has taken an active interest in the implementation of this model at James Cook University although he didn’t initiate its introduction and isn’t always kept abreast of its developing intricacies.
Dr Bruno Mascitelli
Swinburne University
Bruno worked for Austrade in Italy for over 17 years and was primarily engaged in export promotion of Australian products into the Italian market. On returning to Australia, Bruno was employed with the Commercial Office of the US Consulate which involved assisting US companies entering the Australian market.
Since joining Swinburne University in 2000, Bruno has specialised in European Studies and International Business. He completed his Masters in International Business in 2001 and completed his PhD at Melbourne University in 2005. His additional interests include Italian Political Economy and Italian politics. He is President of the European Studies Association of Australia and is President of the School Council of the Victorian School of Languages
Prof Martina Möllering
Macquarie University
Assoc Prof Angela Scarino
University of South Australia
Angela Scarino is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and the Director of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the University of South Australia. She has had extensive experience in the conceptualisation, design, implementation and evaluation of curriculum and assessment frameworks for languages learning across all levels of education. She has conducted research, development and evaluation projects in the areas of languages curriculum, assessment and teacher development. Her experience includes working in various states and nationally in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand. She is currently leading a number of research projects focused on intercultural language learning and assessment.
Dr Mary Stevens
Melbourne University
Based at the University of Melbourne, Dr Mary Stevens has worked part-time as the project officer on the two LASP projects since December 2006. She has a background in general linguistics and Italian, having commenced Beginners' Italian as an undergraduate at ANU. She completed her PhD in 2007, which used acoustic phonetic analyses to investigate the phenomenon of Raddoppiamento sintattico in spoken Italian. She has taught Phonetics and Phonology at the University of Melbourne, and most recently has begun working on International Medical Graduates' spoken English within the Medical Education Unit.
Ms Isabel Tasker
University of New England