About our research team

Watch this short video to hear from our research team.

Meet the Team

  • Dr Melanie Baak

    LEAD RESEARCHER

    Melanie Baak is a Senior Lecturer in UniSA Education Futures and the co-convenor of the Migration and Refugee Research Network (MARRNet). She is an ARC DECRA Fellow from 2023-2025. She is a member of the Centre in Research for Educational and Social Inclusion (CRESI) at the University of South Australia. Her research and teaching interests broadly cover areas of equity and inclusion, particularly in schools, with a focus on refugee education and resettlement. Her research and teaching are underpinned by understandings of how systems and structures work to marginalise sections of the population, particularly culturally and linguistically diverse groups.

    In recent research projects she has collaborated with people from a range communities recently settled in Australia to explore themes including; belonging, schooling and education, employment, identity, home, place, transition, family and gender. She was a chief investigator on the 2018-2022 ARC Linkage study exploring how schools foster refugee student resilience. She has also undertaken research for Catholic Education SA, the Australian Refugee Association, Queensland Department of Education, South Australian Department for Education, Primary English Teaching Association Australia and South Australian English Teachers Association.

    Melanie received an Australian Government Endeavour Research Fellowship to the University of Glasgow in 2017 during which time she researched schools as sites of resettlement for Syrian refugees in Glasgow. Melanie has had diverse roles in community development, education and research working with refugee background communities over the past 18 years.

    Aside from her academic work, Melanie is a mum to three African diaspora children and the wife of a Dinka man from South Sudan who has lived in Australia for 20 years.

    Melanie's UniSA Homepage

PhD Candidates

  • Eddie Hypolite

    Eddie Hypolite is a Londoner by birth, the youngest of 10 children and the director of EYR Pty Ltd (Empowering Your Resilience), a professional and personal development consultancy, specialising in developing value centred resilience for living and leadership.

    His academic background in systemic theology and sociology has carried him internationally as a motivational teacher and leadership culture specialist speaking in the areas of faith, culture and social engagement. He worked as a pastor for 16 years in both London and also NSW, Australia and comes from a foundational background of youth work and residential social work.

    He and his family live in NSW.

  • Hellen Magoi

    My name is Hellen Magoi. I am a mother of two, the eighth of nine children born to pastoralist parents in the western part of Kenya. I moved to Australia in February 2016 to study.

    My academic background is in social work, human resource management, and business administration. I have had the privilege of working with people from different cultural backgrounds. Through my work, I have developed an understanding and experience in evidenced-based approaches to assessments as well as interventions for trauma survivors, women and children escaping domestic and family violence, and newly arrived humanitarian migrants.

    I previously held various management and administration capacities in both private and public sector organizations in Kenya.

    I have a keen interest to harness my skills and knowledge to mentor and support young people to enhance their capacities to reach for their dreams and aspirations.

    I live in South Australia with my daughter. During my free time, I enjoy dancing and traveling.

  • Cas Gemoh

    Cas was born in Cameroon and moved to Australia in the early 2000s to study. His academic background is in political science, theology and pastoral care, counselling, and mental health.

    He has worked with children and young people in a range of settings: youth work, pastoral care, out of home residential care, school counselling, and school wellbeing leadership. Cas has a passion for supporting children and young people’s wellbeing and he uses a holistic, strengths-based approach.

    Cas lives in Melbourne with his family, and he enjoys gardening, road trips, DIY projects, bike riding, and playing soccer in his spare time.