Autism, digital learning innovations and learning and development: Meet the new Macquarie experts shaping educational studies.
The Department of Educational Studies is shaping the future of education and providing positive social impact through transformative learning and research. We’re focused on making our graduates stand out in the job market through innovative teaching practices and our 5R framework, which helps our students develop and retain skills throughout their career.
We’re delighted that a number of outstanding academics have recently joined us to help shape and grow this vision. We extend a warm welcome to:
Professor Garry Falloon
Professor Falloon is passionate about technology, particularly technology that enhances students’ learning and discovery in the classroom. Professor Falloon began his career as a primary and secondary school teacher before serving as deputy and then principal of a large primary school in Christchurch. Since then, he has implemented and managed school-based digital innovation projects under the Digital Opportunities Projects program and worked at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, as a professor for nearly 10 years. As an expert in digital learning innovations, Professor Falloon has won national and international awards for project leadership and research in the field of e-learning. These were awarded by Microsoft, the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand and Computerworld for excellence in e-research and digital innovations project design.
Professor Liz Pellicano
Professor Pellicano is an expert in high-quality evidence-based research on autism. She is passionate about encouraging researchers to think differently about their approach to research and to engage people with autism and their families in the research process. Professor Pellicano is currently the director of the prestigious Centre for Research in Autism and Education at University College London. She has 70 international peer-reviewed papers and has been successful in 32 research grants that total AU$5.8 million. Professor Pellicano is a cognitive scientist and educational psychologist whose work spans across the faculty‘s four departments (Cognitive Science, Educational Studies, Linguistics, Psychology), presenting exciting opportunities for research and multidisciplinary collaboration.
Professor Rauno K Parrila
Professor Rauno Parrila is an expert in learning and development and is currently the director of J.P. Das Centre on Developmental and Learning Disabilities. Professor Parrila worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, and as an Associate Professor of Educational and Cognitive Psychology at the University of Tromsø, Norway. Professor Parrila is particularly interested in psychological, linguistic and social correlates of both typical and atypical development of academic skills, particularly reading. He also has a keen interest in identification and remediation of reading, attention and problem-solving difficulties in children.
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