Janet Clinton

Chief Investigator
Director of the Centre for Program Evaluation and Director of the International Teacher Education Effectiveness Research Hub, Melbourne Graduate School of Education

Professor Janet Clinton is Director of the Centre for Program Evaluation and Director of the International Teacher Education Effectiveness Research Hub, at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She has wide national and international experience as an evaluator, psychologist, and educator, and has an extensive publication record. Recently she was the principal evaluator for the Australian Professional Standards for Teaching, and the Real-time captioning pilot in Victorian Schools. She currently leads the Visible Classroom initiative as well as directs the Teacher Capability Assessment Tool project. Overall, she has led over 100 national and international evaluation projects.

Ian McShane

Chief Investigator
Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Associate Professor Ian McShane is the Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University's Centre for Urban Research. His research focuses on informal and formal education systems (especially museums, libraries and schools), local infrastructure and community services, and digital technologies. Ian is currently researching shared use community infrastructure and service co-ordination, the development of publicly accessible wireless networks in Australia and internationally, and the representational politics of cultural diversity in Australian museums. Ian has had a long involvement with the Australian museum sector, working as a senior curator at the National Museum of Australia and consulting to other levels of government on museums and culture.

In 2013 Ian was appointed to UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network external evaluation panel.

Ruth Aston

Research Fellow
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Dr Ruth Aston is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Program Evaluation. Her expertise includes project design, stakeholder engagement and program evaluation. Her research interests lie in developing success criteria for complex multi-level, multi-site interventions in communities aiming to achieve enduring social change in health and education outcomes. Previously, at the University of Auckland, she worked on a three-year national project investigating the workforce effectiveness of health promotion workers in New Zealand. Beyond Building Connections, Ruth is evaluating the Indigenous Australians' Health Programme and the Differentiated Support for School Improvement in Victoria.

Philippa Chandler

Research Fellow
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Dr Philippa (Pippa) Chandler is Research Fellow with Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) where she is investigating how schools can double-up as community hubs. Philippa is a member of the Institute of Australian Geographers and is particularly interested in how people ‘perform’ community in everyday Australian life. Her recent PhD explored place-attachment, community and environmental conflict among return visitors to the Ningaloo Reef region of Western Australia. In her spare time, Philippa dabbles with journalism and occasionally contributes articles about arts and culture to Guardian Australia.

Simon Le Nepveu

Partner Investigator
Partner, ClarkeHopkinsClarke; BArch (UoM), ALEP

Simon Le Nepveu has been an architect of learning environments for 15 years and is one of only a handful in Australia with the internationally recognised Accredited Learning Environments ALEP qualification.

His expertise ranges from masterplanning established campuses to expanding and revitalising existing infrastructure and developing vibrant new schools in key growth areas. Simon is a Partner at ClarkeHopkinsClarke leading the company’s education sector.

Laurence Robinson

Partner Investigator
Director, Brand Architects; BArch, BAppSci, Registered Architect

Laurence’s experience spans more than 25 years in practice and has given him an in-depth knowledge of the design and operation of a wide range of public buildings with an emphasis on education and community services.

In addition to his practice work, Laurence has taught Environmental Design and Postgraduate Architectural Design at the University of Melbourne.

Natalie Miles

PhD Candidate (supervised by Dr Ben Cleveland & Dr Philippa Chandler)
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

As part of Building Connections project, Natalie is researching ‘Spatial Analysis of School and Community Interaction, identifying and recording who, where, when and how community members are using school facilities.

Natalie is also a registered architect in Victoria and has been practicing architecture as an Associate at Austin Maynard Architects with several award-winning projects under her belt since completing her Master of Architecture in 2013. This PhD project sees a return to her interest in schools and education after her master’s thesis titled School/City.

Carolina Rivera Yevenes

PhD Candidate (supervised by Dr Ben Cleveland & Dr Philippa Chandler)
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

As part of Building Connections project, Carolina's research will focus on how schools can be planned, designed, governed and managed to thrive as community hubs.

She holds a Master of education from the University of Melbourne and a degree in education and philosophy. She has more than ten years of experience as a teacher and also working with schools as an academic consultant and formulating intervention programs. In 2012, she co-founded NGO Innovacien, Chilean organisation working in the development of 21st-century skills, technology and innovation in schools.

Sarah Backhouse

Building Connections Project Manager
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Sarah is a registered architect who has been facilitating future focused conversations about workspace and learning environments for the past 20 years. She has consulted on projects as diverse as Global Workplace Guidelines for Microsoft and User Briefs for more than 20 Universities in the UK, Europe and Australia. Sarah's research interests and expertise span learning environments, academic workspace transformation, architectural briefing, and psychological wellbeing in the built environment. With expertise in higher education learning and working environments, Sarah managed the Academic Workspace Evaluation (AWE) project which aims to provide universities and research institutions with guidance on appropriate workspace typologies for the future.

Rebecca Colless

Research Communications Coordinator
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Rebecca has studied science, communication, writing and journalism and enjoyed a 30-year career as a writer and presenter. She helps research organisations, businesses, government and non-profits to educate and motivate diverse audiences with exceptional empathy, creativity, clarity and brevity. Through co-owning two successful businesses, Rebecca has gained direct and deep understanding of brand development, stakeholder engagement and targeted marketing.

Hayley Paproth

PhD Candidate (supervised by Professor Janet Clinton)
Melbourne Graduate School of Education

Hayley Paproth joins the Building Connections team as a PhD Candidate in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne. Hayley will be evaluating the social impact of community hub schools, seeking to identify cases of improved social outcomes due to community hub schools, and the factors that lead to this success. She will also investigate ways to support community hub schools to conduct their own monitoring and evaluation.

Hayley holds a Bachelor of Engineering, a Bachelor of Science, a Masters of Teaching, and a Masters of Evaluation and has over 7 years’ experience as a teacher and leader in Victorian schools. She also has experience in diverse evaluation projects, including managing large-scale projects being conducted for the Victorian Department of Education and Training, as part of her work with the Centre for Program Evaluation at the University of Melbourne.

Robert Polglase

PhD Candidate (supervised by Associate Professor Ian McShane)
Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Joining the Building Connections team culminates Rob’s long held dream to collaborate to build research based evidence for sharing knowledge to influence policy settings, connected to planning, design, delivery of learning and community sites to meet diverse community needs as flourishing centres.

Rob’s research proposal is steeped in years of project work related to Building Connections objectives for evaluating policy-planning-design-governance settings. This experience includes education, health, community sectors, commercial, multi-residential, public realm, transport infrastructure, urban renewal and land development programs. These projects have incorporated urban policy development, strategic planning, funding submissions, setting site planning and development vision, concept to final agreed design, contract procurement to delivery with advocacy for clients, stakeholders, communities, and all levels of Government.

Rob has extensively participated in industry forums and academic teaching throughout his career. Rob’s recent teaching focus has included affordable, socially inclusive design for education, community health, housing density, connected neighbourhoods.