Our team

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Our team

Meet our interdisciplinary team of researchers who are leading innovation in social and cultural care to support diverse ageing futures.

Our Team

Professor Loretta Baldassar is Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Arts and Humanities at ECU. She is Professor of Anthropology and Sociology and leads the research program in Migration, Diversity and Care, and the ECU SAGE Futures Lab . Her career has been devoted to better understanding the impact of migration on families and communities, with a focus on the role of social support networks, intergenerational relations, and the social uses of new technologies.

Dr Gillian Abel

Dr Gillian Abel is a Research Officer within the Migration Diversity and Care Research Program and provides administrative support to Prof Loretta Baldassar, the ECU SAGE Lab, and the wider MDC team.

Dr Manonita Ghosh

Dr Manonita Ghosh is a Research Fellow in the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care, and co-leads the Harmony in Migrant Health Hub . With a background in anthropology and public health, her research explores cross-cultural influences on health behaviour, ageing and social care, health service evaluation, and music and migrant health.

Bronte Jones

Bronte is a Research Fellow within the Migration Diversity and Care Research Program. They work closely with the Social Ageing (SAGE) Futures Lab and the Rainbow Migrants Living La b. Bronte brings research expertise in medical anthropology and sociology.

Dr Lukasz Krzyzowski

Dr Lukasz Krzyzowski (he/him) is Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow within the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care and founder of the Rainbow Migrants Living Lab . Dr Krzyzowski specialises in applied sociology and intersectionality, focusing on migration, care, sexual and gender diversity, and social justice. He advances policy and co-designed community interventions.

Dr Simone Marino

Dr Simone Marino is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Education. He combines his academic role with consultancy at WA InCasa Aged Care. His interdisciplinary expertise focuses on ethnic identity, dementia and music engagement, and migrant well-being, employing ethnographic and health sciences methods.

Dr Hien Thi Nguyen

Dr Hien Thi Nguyen is a Research Fellow within the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care, and is a key member of the ECU SAGE Futures Lab. She has expertise in ageing and wellbeing, diversity, migration, gender, and development. She is also the project manager for the international Decentering Migration Knowledge (DemiKnow) project.

Dr Catriona Stevens

Dr Catriona Turnbull (Stevens) is a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow and ARC DECRA Fellow in the ECU Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care. Cat is a sociologist and anthropologist with expertise in migration, ageing, care workforce, transnational caregiving, and the abuse of older people (elder abuse). Cat leads the ECU SAGE Lab research stream Inclusive Ageing: Social Care Policy and Practice.

Dr Deirdre Drake

Dr Deirdre Drake teaches and conducts research in developmental psychology, with a focus on transitions in adulthood, social norms in intergenerational relationships, and psycho-legal issues related to aging, such as age-related discrimination. Deirdre is co-leading the SAGE Lab’s research stream Positive Ageing: Psychology and Health.

Associate Professor Eyal Gringart

Associate Professor Eyal Gringart is an expert social psychologist with particular interest in ageing, human-rights, Social-Justice and Inclusivity. He is a long-term member of the Australian Association of Gerontology and part of its Anti-Ageism task force. Eyal is co-leading the SAGE Lab’s research stream Positive Ageing: Psychology and Health.

Dr Trish Cain

Dr Trish Cain is a social psychologist whose research focuses on stigma, attitude formation, and the lived experiences of marginalised groups. She is known for methodological expertise in qualitative research, discourse analysis, and psychometric scale development. More recently, her scholarship has extended into ageing, dementia, and aged care, with multiple publications analysing data from the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Trish contributes to the SAGE Lab’s research stream Positive Ageing: Psychology and Health.

Dr Li-Ann Leow

Dr Li-Ann Leow is an emerging leader in the field of motor learning and motor control, with particular interests in improving motor function and motor learning in older adults and clinical conditions including Parkinson's disease and stroke. Dr Leow contributes to the SAGE Lab’s research stream Positive Ageing: Psychology and Health.

Dr Shaun Markovic

Shaun completed his PhD (Psychology) in 2023. Before joining ECU, he was employed as a post-doctoral research fellow within the Centre for Healthy Ageing at Murdoch University. Shaun’s research interests are focused on ways of maintaining our mental and physical health as we age, particularly for vulnerable populations such as people with a history of traumatic brain injury. Shaun contributes to the SAGE Lab’s research stream Positive Ageing: Psychology and Health.

Professor Sanetta du Toit

Sanetta du Toit is Professor and Discipline Lead of Occupational Therapy at Edith Cowan University’s School for Medicine and Health Sciences. As an international occupational therapy researcher and practitioner, she has an established reputation for innovation in aged care with minority groups and held clinical positions in the UK, USA and South Africa. Sanetta is leading the SAGE Lab’s research stream Optimal Ageing: Restoration, Productivity and Pleasure for Social Health.

Dr Aarthi Ganapathy

Aarthi Ganapathy is a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at Edith Cowan University. Her research explores digital mental health - particularly the barriers that shape engagement and implementation. She has contributed to large-scale public health and suicide prevention projects and has led the development of psychometric tools to measure barriers to digital mental health use. Aarthi contributes to the SAGE Lab’s Digital Ageing research stream.

Postgraduate Research Students

Farzaneh Ghaznavi

Farzaneh Ghaznavi is a PhD candidate within the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care. Her research explores successful ageing and healthy ageing in migrant populations, with a focus on the lived experiences of Iranian older adults in new cultural contexts. Her doctoral project, Ageing in a New Land, examines how Iranian migrants define and pursue successful ageing, navigate intergenerational relationships and caregiving responsibilities, and sustain transnational ties that shape their wellbeing. She holds a Master of Health Economics from Sapienza University of Rome and a Bachelor of Public Health from Iran.

Yu (Yvonne) Huang

Yu (Yvonne) Huang is a PhD candidate within the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care. Her research delves into Chinese migrant families in Australia and Canada.

Chenchen Li

Chenchen Li is a PhD candidate within the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care. Her research focuses on aged care facilities in China, care workers, changes in the practice of filial piety, and the quality of care services. Her doctoral project, Filial Care Proxy and Filial Responsibility: A Study on the Role Identity and Influencing Factors of Aged-Care Workers in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China, examines how professional caregivers are positioned as “filial proxies” within China’s shifting eldercare landscape. She holds a Bachelor in Broadcasting and Television Journalism from Harbin Normal University and a Master in Digital Communication and Culture from the University of Sydney.

Ruiyao Luo

Ruiyao Luo is a PhD student within the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care. Her research explores the intersections of gender, labour, and mobility, with a particular focus on Asian migrant experiences in Australia. She brings a decade of experience as a media professional and holds interdisciplinary academic training across gender studies, journalism and communication, and law.

Kidus Yenealem Mefteh

Kidus Yenealem Mefteh is a PhD student in the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care. His research examines how Ethiopian migrants in Australia provide transnational family care for older adults living in Ethiopia, using social network analysis. He earned his BSW and MSW from Addis Ababa University in 2015 and 2018. With a decade of experience in higher education, he has served as a lecturer and was formerly Head of the Department of Social Work at the University of Gondar in Ethiopia.

Tshering Phuntsho

Tshering Phuntsho is a PhD student in the Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care. His current research, which is a part of the YFAM project, explores the impact of mobility on transition to adulthood among the young Bhutanese migrants in Australia. He has more than 12 years of experience working in the hydropower sector as a social and environmental management professional in Bhutan.

Nelgyn Tennyson

Nelgyn Tennyson, a PhD Candidate and Research Officer, specialises in economics and demography. His research interests include transnational care, neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders, health policy, life course demography, social epidemiology, and gerontology. He contributes to designing data collection tools, quality checks, and analysis.

Amanda Wornum

Amanda Wornum is a postgraduate research student within the School of Arts and Humanities.

Shermaine Ng

Ms Shermaine Ng is a PhD candidate enrolled in the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University, conducting a research study on enabling the occupation of successful transnational caregiving in Australia. With a background of First Class Honours in Bachelor of Occupational Therapy (University of Sydney), Shermaine published her thesis titled ‘Improving care for older prisoners living with dementia in Australian prisons: Perspectives of external organizations’ in 2021. Shermaine is a keen learner passionate about translating research findings into real-world applications that transform lives and clinical practice. Shermaine currently runs a mobile occupational therapy service in Adelaide.

Shamima Akter

Shamima is a PhD candidate in the School of Arts and Humanities. Her doctoral research, A Grounded Theory of the Lived Experiences of Ageing in Bangladesh, explores how older adults in Bangladesh experience ageing within their personal, social, cultural, and environmental contexts. Her study engages both older adults and key stakeholders to examine the strengths and limitations of current systems and policies supporting the ageing population. Shamima holds a Master of Philosophy and a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology and is a qualified Clinical Psychologist.

Yavar Fadavi Asghari

Yavar Fadavi is a PhD candidate in Psychology at the School of Arts and Humanities. His research focuses on immigration, acculturation, and social identity, particularly how cultural, national, ethnic, and religious identities are negotiated in intercultural relations and how they contribute to positive migrant adaptation outcomes.

Adjuncts and Visiting Scholars

Dr Raisa Akifeva

Dr Raisa Akifeva is an Adjunct Research Fellow with the ECU SAGE Futures Lab. She completed her PhD in Anthropology and Sociology at The University of Western Australia with a thesis titled Cultural continuity and discontinuity in a Russian-speaking migrant context: Cultural dilemmas, national habitus and unbelonging (2022). Her research focuses on migration studies, particularly migrant parenting, Othering and belonging, and state–diaspora relations. She has published regularly in these fields, contributing to such journals as Sociology, Ethnicities, and the Journal of Intercultural Studies. In 2024, she received the TASA Early Career Researcher Best Paper Prize for her publication on cultural continuity.

Dr Rita Asfar

With a background in policy and research, Dr Rita Afsar, recently retired from the Office of Multicultural Interests (OMI), where she was engaged, since 2011, as a Senior Strategy, Planning and Research Officer. Rita led OMI’s work on ageing in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities in Western Australia and has produced several reports identifying issues impacting on CALD seniors. She has expertise in policy and action research in the areas of ageing, migration, gender, social development, poverty, inequality and multiculturalism.

Professor Colleen Doyle

Professor Colleen Doyle is an adjunct professor at Edith Cowan University. She is an Honorary Fellow at the National Ageing Research Institute and Honorary Professor in Psychological Science at Swinburne University. Colleen has received a career total of 37 grants to support her research in the aged care field and published over 120 academic and technical reports on her findings. Colleen is a CI on the ECU-led MRFF project Befriending with GENIE.

Associate Professor Anita Goh

Associate Professor Anita Goh is a clinical neuropsychologist and a principal research fellow at the National Ageing Research Institute, with expertise in mental health, cognition, ageing, and dementia. Dr Goh is on the Advisory Council of the Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment, Board Director of the Australian Association of Gerontology, and Councillor on the Royal Society of Victoria. Anita is a CI on the ECU-led MRFF project Befriending with GENIE.

Dr Giulia Marchetti

Giulia Marchetti is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University (ECU). In 2023, she completed her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Western Australia, with a study on the new mobilities of young Italians in Australia, as part of the YMAP (Youth Mobilities, Aspirations and Pathways) research project. She currently lives in Prato, Italy, and from 2024 to 2025 she worked as a research fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Florence, contributing to the PRIN 2022 project “Covid-19 as Cultural Trauma.” Her research interests include transnational mobility, youth cultures, transition to adulthood, and visual methods.

Professor Maria Marchetti-Mercer

Prof Maria Marchetti-Mercer is a Professor of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and currently serving as Assistant Dean: Research for the Faculty of Humanities. She served as the Head of the School of Human and Community Development at Wits from 2012-2016. Prior to that, she was the head of the Psychology Department at the University of Pretoria from 2001-2011. She has been involved in the training of professional psychologists especially with regard to family therapy for nearly 30 years and her doctoral thesis was on the Milan School of family therapy. Her current area of research focuses on the impact of migration on South African families and most recently the use of ICTs in African migrant families. She was awarded the Order of the Star of Italy in 2022 for her professional contributions from the President of Italy.

Dr Jane Mulcock

Dr Jane Mulcock is an anthropologist with interests encompassing community arts engagement, arts participation & health outcomes, arts-based research methods, identity & belonging, Indigenous Cultural & Intellectual Property rights, cultural borrowing & appropriation, and environmental beliefs values & practices. Mulcock lives in regional WA on Wudjari Boodja (Kepa Kurl /Esperance). She has worked since 2012 as Executive Officer for Esperance Community Arts and since 2019 with Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation's community engagement team.

Professor Nonja Peters

Nonja Peters, PhD (Anthropology UWA), is a Western Australian historian, anthropologist and museum curator whose expertise is in transnational migration (forced and voluntary), immigrant entrepreneurship, ethnicity, sense of place, identity and belonging and the sustainable digital preservation of immigrants’ cultural heritage. She has a special interest in Dutch maritime, military, migration and mercantile connections with Australia and the South-East Asian Region from 1602. Currently, she is involved in academic, community-based, visual and bilateral research and events in all these areas in Australia, Netherlands, Indonesia and internationally. She is the author of many publications, sole-authored books, book chapters, academic articles and documentaries and curator of a plethora of permanent and travelling museum exhibitions.

Cristina Thompson

Cristina Thompson is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow with Edith Cowan University and an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Wollongong. As a former Senior Research Fellow with the Australian Health Services Research Institute, she undertook evaluations of complex health programs in diverse fields including aged care, dementia, mental health and health workforce redesign. Her current interest is primary care interventions to improve health outcomes for older Australians. Cristina is an AI on the ECU-led MRFF project Befriending with GENIE.

Dr Keiu Telve

Dr Keiu Telve obtained her Cultural Studies PhD from the University of Tartu (2019), collaborating with Eastern Finland University. Currently a postdoctoral researcher at ECU, she delves into digital social inclusion, focusing on Estonians in Australia and their virtual ties to their homeland. With a decade of research spanning cross-border commuting, Estonian work culture, and technology's impact on society, she co-founded Estonia's Applied Anthropology Centre, applying human-centered solutions to societal challenges.

Migration, Diversity and Care

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