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  • Professional headshot of Dr Michelle Striepe standing outdoors with arms crossed beside a lake, surrounded by reeds and trees, with a water fountain and campus-style buildings visible in the background, she is wearing a navy long-sleeved top and striped trousers.

    Dr Michelle Striepe

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  • Google Scholar Profile
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Dr Michelle Striepe

Senior Lecturer (Educational Leadership)

Staff Member Details
Telephone: +61 8 6304 5494
Email: m.striepe@ecu.edu.au
Campus: Mount Lawley  
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0216-5805

Michelle is a Senior Lecturer and Academic Coordinator for Educational Leadership in the School of Education.

Background

Michelle joined Edith Cowan University's School of Education as a Senior Lecturer in 2020, following academic appointments at Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia, where she also completed her Doctor of Education. Her career spans initial teacher education, postgraduate coursework, and higher degree research training, including roles coordinating secondary teacher education courses and leading course accreditation processes. Prior to her academic career, Michelle taught in primary and secondary schools across Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Japan, an international teaching background that continues to inform her research and teaching in educational leadership.

At ECU, Michelle has held a range of academic leadership roles, including Academic Coordinator for Educational Leadership, Higher Degree Research Coordinator, and Course Coordinator for the Graduate Certificate of Education (Leading Education). She currently supervises master's and doctoral candidates researching leadership, crisis response, and professional practice, and has guided HDR candidates through to successful completion.

Michelle's research examines how educational leaders navigate crisis and challenging circumstances, with recent publications in the Journal of Educational Administration and School Leadership & Management exploring how Australasian principals adapted, learned, and led through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. This program of work has grown into multi-country, comparative studies involving colleagues across Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and beyond, and has recently attracted national media attention, including radio, podcast, and online news coverage. She is co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Crisis Leadership and Management in Education, the first international handbook dedicated to crisis leadership in K–12 education, bringing together contributors from 12 countries. Michelle is currently Co-Convenor of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Educational Leadership Special Interest Group and sits on the Editorial Board of the Australian Educational Leader journal.

Current teaching

  • EPA6158: Leading Community Engagement
  • EPA6340: Leading Community Engagement
  • EPA6255: Leading Under Challenging Circumstances
  • EPA6355: Leading Under Challenging Circumstances
  • EPA6100: Leading for Effectiveness, Improvement and Policies
  • EPA6102: Leading Through Crises and Challenging Circumstances

Professional Associations

  • 2020 - Australian Association for Research in Education (Member)
  • 2026 - Australian Council for Educational Leaders

Research Interests

  • Educational Leadership
  • Crisis leadership and management in education
  • Teacher and middle level leadership
  • Leading in challenging circumstances
  • Leading during disruption
  • Qualitative research methods
  • Visual methodology

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Education, The University of Western Australia, 2010.

Research Outputs

2026

Book Chapters

  • Kafa, A., Striepe, M., Virella, P. (2026). Discussion: From Conceptualising to Practicing and Understanding School Leadership in Times of Crisis. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Crisis Leadership and Management in Education (369-378). Bloomsbury.
  • Striepe, M., Virella, P., Kafa, A. (2026). The Mosaic of Leading Schools During Crisis. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Crisis Leadership and Management in Education (13-30). Bloomsbury.
  • Kafa, A., Striepe, M., Virella, P. (2026). An Introduction: From Crisis Concepts to Crisis Leadership and Management in School Organisations. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Crisis Leadership and Management in Education (). Bloomsbury.
  • Striepe, M., Kafa, A. (2026). Understanding School Leaders' Response to Health Crisis. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Crisis Leadership and Management in Education (333-349). Bloomsbury.
  • Cunningham, C., Striepe, M., Robertson, S., Taylor, A., Thompson, P., Longmuir, F., Devi, M., Gurr, D. (2026). Chapter 35: The role of Australian, New Zealand and Fijian school leaders in building community resilience for a century of crises. The Routledge International Handbook of Schooling in Times of Crisis (405-420). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003543008-35.

Journal Articles

  • Ajith, MM., Lux, A., Striepe, M., Bentley, T. (2026). When caring depletes: The paradox of leading employee wellbeing during a prolonged crisis – evidence from the Australian resources sector. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 47(9), 114-132. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-01-2026-0060.

2025

Journal Articles

  • Striepe, M., Cunningham, C., Devi, M., Gurr, D., Longmuir, F., Robertson, S., Taylor, A., Thompson, P. (2025). Lessons from Australasian principals’ experiences with crises: adapting, learning and transforming. School Leadership and Management, 45(4), 344-366. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2025.2546094.
  • Ajith, M., Lux, A., Bentley, T., Striepe, M. (2025). Adaptive crisis management at the operational level: Responses to COVID-19 in the Australian resources sector. Journal of Management and Organization, 31(4), 1909-1933. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2024.62.
  • Striepe, M., Kafa, A. (2025). School Leadership During the COVID-19 Crisis: A Scoping Review of Empirical Research. Journal of Educational Administration, 63(1), 48-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-03-2024-0062.

2024

Book Chapters

  • Striepe, M. (2024). Navigating Uncertainty During Crisis: Insights into the Experiences of Three Western Australian Principals. Leading Schools Through and Beyond the Pandemic (33-49). Information Age Publishing. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks2022-2026/5940.

Journal Articles

  • Harvankova, L., Cunningham, C., Striepe, M. (2024). “Mummy is meeting a teacher, play on the iPad”: Reflecting on educational leadership during COVID-19 lockdown in Australia. Management in Education, 38(1), 35-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/08920206211054645.
  • Fogarty, S., Cunningham, C., Striepe, M., Rhodes, D. (2024). The provision of vocational education and training within contemporary political socio-economic conditions: a review of the literature. International Journal of Training Research, 22(3), 197-214. https://doi.org/10.1080/14480220.2023.2263671.

2023

Journal Articles

  • Striepe, M., Thompson, P., Robertson, S., Devi, M., Gurr, D., Longmuir, F., Taylor, A., Cunningham, C. (2023). Responsive, adaptive, and future-centred leadership in response to crisis: Findings from Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand. School Leadership and Management, 43(2), 104-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2023.2171005.
  • Striepe, M., Thomson, S., Sefcik, L. (2023). Understanding Academic Integrity Education: Case Studies from Two Australian Universities. Journal of Academic Ethics, 21(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-021-09429-x.

2022

Journal Articles

  • Striepe, M., Cunningham, C. (2022). Understanding educational leadership during times of crises: A scoping review. Journal of Educational Administration, 60(2), 133-147. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-03-2021-0057.
  • Striepe, M., Cunningham, C. (2022). Gatekeepers, guides and ghosts: intermediaries impacting access to schools during COVID-19. Ethnography and Education, 17(3), 275-292. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2022.2049332.
  • Cunningham, C., Zhang, W., Striepe, M., Rhodes, D. (2022). Dual leadership in Chinese schools challenges executive principalships as best fit for 21st century educational development. International Journal of Educational Development, 89(March 2022), Article number 102531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2021.102531.

2021

Journal Articles

  • Striepe, M. (2021). Combining concept mapping with semi-structured interviews: adding another dimension to the research process. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 44(5), 519-532. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2020.1841746.
  • Fittock, S., Cunningham, C., Striepe, M. (2021). System leadership in Australian and Swedish education: What’s social justice got to do with it?. Access: critical perspectives on communication, cultural and policy studies, 41(2), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.46786/ac21.5999.
  • Zhang, W., Striepe, M., Cunningham, C. (2021). School leadership during the COVID-19 Crisis: A preliminary case study from China. Alternation: international journal for the study of Southern African literature and languages, 28(1), 225-250. https://doi.org/10.29086/2519-5476/2021/v28n1a9.

2020

Journal Articles

  • Sefcik, L., Striepe, M., Yorke, J. (2020). Mapping the landscape of academic integrity education programs: what approaches are effective?. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(1), 30-43. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2019.1604942.

Research Student Supervision

Current Supervisions

Principal Supervisor

  • Master of Education, An Autoethnographic Study of Middle Leadership in Times of Disruption in Indonesian International Schools
  • Master of Education, Leading through sustained volatility: an interpretivist case study of a Victorian school

Associate Supervisor

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Examining the provision of vocational education and training delivered to secondary students (VETdSS) in metropolitan Western Australia
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Experiences of ELICOS leaders during COVID-19 in Victoria

Completed Supervisions

Principal Supervisor

  • Master of Education, Narratives of families who speak English as an additional language or dialect on engaging with their children’s education during COVID-19

Associate Supervisor

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Empirical Insights into Adaptive Crisis Leadership: Operational Leaders’ Evolving Functions, Behavioural Reconfigurations, and Paradox Navigation in Australia’s Mining, Oil and Gas Sectors During a Protracted Crisis
  • Master of Education, How Educational Leaders at a Type C International School in China Understand Educational Leadership
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Getting ready right: The impact and influence of the University Appointed Supervisor
  • Doctor of Philosophy, The role of text type in the reading development of beginning readers with English as an additional language
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