Dr Catherine Barrett is the founder and director of Celebrate Ageing, a not for profit challenging ageism and building respect for older people. Catherine has worked with older people for over 35 years as a nurse in residential aged care, and then as a senior research fellow at a La Trobe university, Melbourne and in her current role for the past 6 years Catherine believes that building a culture of respect for older people requires that we make ageism visible and challenge the notion of aging as a binary (e.g., young = good and old = bad).
She believes cultural change begins with each and every one of us challenging our own internalised ageism.

Catherine is a 2022 Probono Australia Impact 25 award winner
Then Globe 2021 LGBTIQ person of the year And the founder and director of the Kindness Pandemic – voted the most uplifting facebook group in the world

Rhonda is an early career researcher interested in geographies of diversity, multiculturalism and belonging in urban spaces. Her PhD research on the geographies of Islamophobia in Sydney, Australia and the San Francisco Bay Area, USA revealed the need for local and context-specific anti-racism policy practice, public education campaigns and policy initiatives that respond to the spatial imaginaries and lived experiences of racialised groups.

Prior to her appointment with the Centre for Western Sydney, Rhonda was a community program manager at UTS, and a researcher with the Challenging Racism Project (CRP) at Western Sydney University. In her role with the CRP, she collaborated on multi-stakeholder projects focused on geographies of diversity and racism in Australian cities. She was also previously appointed as a Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley where she developed research and resources for countering Islamophobia in the American context.

Dr Peter Bansel is a sociologist and member of Sexualities and Gender Research in the School of Sciences at Western Sydney University. His scholarship and research interests respond to political questions about how social differences are made, not given, and how thinking differently about difference might inform both a diagnosis of the present and anticipate future possibilities for human becoming.
In contesting taken for granted accounts of what it means to be human, natural, or normal, Peter’s work explores how the social world of people, and the material world of things, are interrelated. This intertwining of worlds generates conversations about the body as matter, which bodies come to matter, and how we might reorient our thinking about what matters for our collective survival.

Our guests are Cat Pause is a Fat Studies scholar and fat activist in Aotearoa New Zealand. Dr. Pause's scholarship focuses on the impact of fat stigma on the health and well-being of fat people.

Mneme (Nee Mee) or Mne, is a 30 year old, fat, queer, disabled and chronically/mentally ill artist and content creator living on Kaurna Yerta (so called Adelaide) She/They has a long history of being involved with activism, social justice etc, but due to complex and intersecting marginalisation often finds herself falling through the proverbial cracks. She considers her very existence to be revolutionary.

This episode opens up with an introduction of Nida and what has influenced nearly two decades of research on racism and anti-racism. Nida Denson is an Associate Professor at Western Sydney University. Her research aims to combat racism and discrimination, to improve the health and wellbeing of various marginalised groups (e.g., people of colour, people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people who are gender and sexuality diverse). Her research background is in the areas of higher education and psychology. She has been a Chief Investigator on ARC Discovery and Linkage projects and other nationally-competitive grants, projects and tenders. Her 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis which examined the effects of racism on health has been cited over 1000 times (Google Scholar, July 2021). She is also internationally-recognised for her anti-racism work in higher education, with her research being cited in U.S. Supreme Court Cases as evidence supporting race-conscious admissions practices as well as anti-racist education in American schools by the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Rachel Sharples is a Sociologist in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. She is a member of the Challenging Racism Project and the Diversity and Human Rights Research Centre. Rachel’s research interests are interdisciplinary, spanning sociology, anthropology, race and ethnic studies, cultural studies and political science. Key areas of research involve displaced persons, refugees and migrants in local and global settings; statelessness, citizenship and belonging; and constructions of ethnicity, culture and identity. She spent two years living and working along the Thai-Burma border in the noughties and returned numerous times over the subsequent decade to conduct research. Her book, Spaces of Solidarity, published by Berghahn Books in 2020 examines notions of activism and spaces of solidarity as practiced by displaced persons in the Thai-Burma borderlands.

Dr. Matt Fisher is a Senior Researcher in Public Health at the Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, at Flinders University. He has worked in public health research for over 10 years, focused on the intersection between public policy and social determinants of health equity in Australia. Matt’s passion lies in understanding the social factors that affect chronic stress and mental illness, and what they mean for public policy and social change. Recently he has extended on this work to develop a public health theory of psychological wellbeing, looking at what wellbeing is and the social conditions needed to promote wellbeing.

Dr Alanna Kamp is Lecturer in Geography and Urban Studies in the School of SocialSciences at Western Sydney University. She is an academic member of theChallenging Racism Project (WSU), Diversity and Human Rights Research Centre(WSU), Young and Resilient Research Centre, and think-tank consortium Centre ofResilient and Inclusive Societies.Dr Kamp’s research contributions lie in the areas of Australian multiculturalism and cultural diversity, experiences of migration and settlement, racism and anti-racism, national identity, citizenship and intersectional experiences of belonging/exclusion. Her work utilises national-level quantitative methods as well as smaller-scale qualitative techniques that are influenced by multi-disciplinary research (post-colonialism, feminism, history, diaspora etc).She has published pioneering (and award winning) work on Chinese Australian women’s experiences of national and cultural identity, participation and contribution, racism and belonging. She has also published in the areas of IndigenousStudies, Asian Australian Studies, and Islamophobia.She is currently leading the project Asian Australians' Experiences of Racism during the COVID19 Pandemic, funded by the Centre of Resilient and InclusiveSocieties, and the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Victoria.

Sharlene Cruickshank is an Aboriginal person. She is a descendant
of the Wandi Wandandian - Wodi Wodi and Jerrinja peoples of the Yuin
nation on the New South Wales’ South Coast. Her story line or song line covers
from one end of the state to the other, from Far West New South Wales to the
South Coast of New South Wales with a few diversions along the way. Sharlene has over
30 years experience working in health-related areas including the past 13 years in
community mental health, social and emotional wellbeing particularly working in Indigenous communities and with women's health. Currently she is working for NSW Health as the Aboriginal Mental Health Clinical Leader at Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District.

Dr Susan Sisko is a registered psychologist, clinical supervisor and lecturer at a major university. She is engaged in research with the Challenging Racism Project | Diversity and Human Rights Research Centre at Western Sydney University. With a background in counselling and psychology, Susan brings her clinical expertise to academia. Susan strives to develop meaningful learning communities, which reflects powerful dimensions of feminist and multicultural pedagogy.

Amongst other publications, Susan is author and co-editor of Cultural Responsiveness in Counselling and Psychology (2021). The book focuses on Australian populations and systemic structures with a social justice framework. Susan is passionate about changing the debate in the field by moving away from cultural competence based on a Eurocentric position and focus on social justice and systemic issues – ultimately shifting blame from vulnerable and non-dominant groups to exploring systemics issues as related to quality of care and the inequity gap in accessing mental health services.