DrCheryl Ryan

Dr Cheryl Ryan, PhD, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), Advance HE, UK is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Faculty of Arts and Edcation.

She is the Course Director for the Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (Learning and Teaching) and an active member of the teaching teams for the Master of Applied Learning and Teaching (Secondary), Graduate Certificate of Applied Learning and Teaching, and Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (Learning & Teaching). She teaches, designs, and leads several core units across the three courses. Dr Ryan currently supervisors PhD candidates and students engaged in Masters-level research. Her ontological and epistemological lenses are informed by socio-critical and post-structural perspectives. Her research examines ways of knowing, being, learning and practicing in institutional and professional contexts and in community settings. She draws on practice theory in her work and research, along with the identification and analysis of power-knowledge relations, critical discourse analysis, narrative analysis, and the socio-cultural, historical and political contexts that influence learning, practice and professional practice.

Dr Ryan is co-editor of the Australian Journal of Adult Learning (AJAL) and an active member of the Australian Council of Deans of Education Vocational Education Group (ACDEVEG). She is a research member of the Deakin University High Risk Ethics Committee (DUHREC).

Prior to this academic position, Dr Ryan worked with an Australian police service in an advisory role leading change in education, training and professional development, and implementing leadership programs with police. She has extensive experience working Community Services in Queensland, in mental health (hospital and community), establishing and managing community-based services in aged care and non-government foster care. Dr Ryan also developed peer education and health promotion programs in Tasmania and taught in Community Services and Youth Work at TAFE.