Talia is a passionate children’s rights and social justice advocate. She is an applied social science researcher drawing from disciplines of social studies of children; intercultural understanding; inclusion, disability, anti-ableism; reconciliation, racism and anti-racism; individual and organisational measures of social impact and change. She is committed to participatory and rights-based research, programs, policy, data and knowledge translation approaches that centre the priorities of, be led by, and engage with marginalised voices, such as children and young people, people with disability, and First Nations peoples and communities. She’s particularly interested in the role of children in social transformation.

Talia has over 20 years experience bridging roles between the public service, research, and NGO sectors in social policy. She has most recently worked in the disability rights and First Nations sector where she led a range of initiatives to address intersectional discrimination, including co-leading a community led framework to assess the extent policies, programs and organisations are culturally safe, inclusive and human rights informed.

Talia’s PhD explored how the education system engages in reconciliation [and racism] at the policy, school and classroom levels as well as through the perspectives of children aged 8-10 years. Through a multi-disciplinary ethnographic inquiry into the everyday policies and practices in two urban primary schools on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri, in the ACT education jurisdiction, the study responded to a gap in understanding diverse children’s voices, and how, why and for whom reconciliation is (re)constructed. Talia undertook her PhD as a Sir Roland Wilson Scholar, and in 2018 she was awarded the Joan Uhr Prize for her contributions to public policy and research.

Whilst a Visiting Fellow at the Centre, in addition to contributing to projects, Talia is translating her thesis Everyday Reconciliation – New Celebrations, Ongoing Silences into a book.