Centre for Work + Life people
The centre's staff have, between them, backgrounds in eleven different disciplinary areas (economics, gender studies, public health, psychology, politics, history, Asian studies, education, business, labour studies and social work). They are a multi-disciplinary team, applying multiple research methods. They have also, between them, broad experience in a wide range of employment types and occupations.
Click on each person's name to see their contact details
Prof
Barbara Pocock, Director
Barbara Pocock has been researching work, employment and industrial relations in Australia for over twenty years. Her research is supported by a Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship 2003–2007. Her first degree was in economics, her PhD was in gender studies, and both were undertaken at the University of Adelaide. She has worked in many jobs: in universities, advising politicians, on farms, in unions, for governments and as a mother. She is widely published. Her recent books include The work–life collision and The labour market ate my kids, both published by Federation Press. She has a lifelong pre-occupation with work and inequality.
Dr
Jude
Elton, Research Associate
Jude Elton has engaged in research, policy development and advocacy on issues of importance to working people for thirty years. Her union, community sector and university employment has focused on industrial relations, equity and discrimination at work and in unions, education and training, labour market programs and occupational health and safety. In 2007 she researched the impact of WorkChoices on vulnerable workers and completed a PhD on factors affecting union relations with Aboriginal workers. She is now working on two studies: one on the participation of low-paid workers in VET and the other on the capacity of health sector employees to obtain a fit between work and other aspects of their lives. In her younger days Jude worked as a physiotherapy aide, waiter, packer and unpaid houseworker.
Dr Natalie
Skinner, Research Fellow
Natalie’s primary research interests are around health and wellbeing in the workplace. She has conducted research on a range of issues including stress and burnout, job satisfaction, work overload and more recently the interaction between work and life. Much of her research has focused on the health workforce. Her background is in psychology, public health and the alcohol and other drugs field. Natalie is the project manager for the Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI) and the Work, Life and Health project. She also has an interest in strategies to bridge the gap between research and practice to support evidence-based policy making and organisational interventions.
Dr
Pip Williams, Research Fellow
Pip Williams has studied a range of social, psychological and health phenomena over the past sixteen years and is now working on a large multi-method study exploring how people fit work, home and community together in urban Australia. Her background is in psychology and public health. She recently completed her PhD in public health at the University of Adelaide, where she used grounded theory to explore the meaning of social support to new mothers and grandmothers. She also has a Masters in Public Health from the University of New South Wales. Pip has worked in many jobs: as an educator, massage therapist, market research interviewer, dental nurse, waitress, kitchen hand, accounts clerk, shop assistant, kiosk attendant, stable hand, door-to-door sales person and cleaner and – not least – as a mother.
Catherine
Earl, PhD Scholar
Catherine Earl's PhD research focuses on young workers in South Australia and the impact of the changing industrial relations climate on their engagement, experience and power in the workforce. Catherine has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in gender studies and anthropology and a Bachelor of Social Work (Honours). Catherine has held numerous casual, temporary and part-time positions in retail and administration. She has also worked in a pre-employment program for young people with multiple and severe barriers to employment.
Sigrid
Christiansen, PhD Scholar
Sigrid Christiansen's research interests are industrial relations, youth studies, social policy and social sustainability. She has an Honours degree in history from the University of Adelaide. Her undergraduate work focused on youth at various moments in history, including working-class girls in nineteenth-century South Australia and young resistance activists in Nazi Germany. Her PhD thesis will analyse how changes to education, housing, relationships and the workplace are influencing young adult lives in Adelaide. This project forms part of the centre’s 'Work, Housing, and Communities Study'
Ali
Elder, PhD Scholar
Ali has been providing assistance in developing research proposals, undertaking literature reviews and helping the Centre think through and learn about data management in Endnote. Ali joined CWL as a PhD student in 2007 researching domestic work and its role in the construction of male and female identity across the generations