Dr Melanie Baak
Dr Melanie Baak was a visiting research fellow with the University of Glasgow UNESCO RILA team from July -October 2017. She was awarded a prestigious Australia Award Endeavour Research Fellowship to undertake her visiting fellowship. Mel’s first meetings with the UNESCO RILA team were during the heightened emotions of visa approvals and rejections for the visit of the Noyam Dancers to Scotland. This encapsulated much of the learning that Mel undertook during her 4.5 months with the team. During Mel’s fellowship she undertook a small research project exploring the role of schools in resettling displaced Syrian students in Glasgow (initial findings have been published from this research in Baak, M. (2019). "Schooling Displaced Syrian Students in Glasgow". In Educational Policies and Practices of English-Speaking Refugee Resettlement Countries. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Sense. In addition, Mel’s visit enabled further development of an existing relationship between the University of Glasgow - Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet) and the Migration and Refugee Research Network (MARRNet), the South Australian based network which Mel is a co-convenor of. During her visit, Mel organized and participated in a range of events including a Refugee Week seminar which brought together practitioners and researchers in Glasgow and Adelaide to discuss aspects of resettlement for displaced Syrians, she was part of a panel discussion with UNESCO RILA members during Black History Month and presented a range of seminars on refugee education including at Edge Hill University and the University of Glasgow.
During Mel’s visit she benefited from the amazing wealth of knowledge and supportive environment of the UNESCO RILA team, learning from the vast knowledge of Professor Alison Phipps, sharing many fascinating office conversations with Tawona Sithole, Dr Gameli Todzro and Dr Maria Grazia Imperiale, working alongside Dr Giovanna Fassetta, all with the wonderful support of Bella Hoogeveen and Lauren Roberts. Mel was joined for the duration of her fellowship by her husband and three young children, and the UNESCO RILA team became an extended family to them all.
Melanie is currently a Research Fellow and Lecturer in UniSA Education Futures (University of South Australia). 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 refugee background communities to explore areas including; belonging, education and employment. She is currently a chief investigator on an ARC Linkage project exploring how schools foster refugee student resilience. Her book ‘Negotiating Belongings: stories of forced migration of Dinka women from South Sudan’ (Sense, 2016) considers how forced migration shapes experiences of belonging. She is passionate about education and has taught in schools in Australia, Kenya and South Sudan and currently runs two schools in South Sudan through her charity, Timpir.
For more info, see her staff page.
Dr Melanie Baak's staff page