Liz Mackinlay

Biography

Professor Liz Mackinlay is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Southern Cross University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work sits at the intersection of education, feminist sociology, Indigenous Studies, and creative qualitative inquiry. Liz holds two PhDs: one in Ethnomusicology from the University of Adelaide (1998) and one in Education from The University of Queensland (2003).

Liz's work contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals

Research

Liz’s research is driven by a deep commitment to social justice, ethical practice, and the transformative possibilities of education. Her current work focuses on gender, decoloniality, and higher education, with particular attention to gender‑based violence in educational settings, consent education in universities and residential colleges, and the gendered conditions of academic life. Across this work, Liz brings feminist and decolonial perspectives to questions of power, care, institutional responsibility, and change.

Alongside her research on gender and violence, Liz is internationally recognised for her contributions to qualitative, creative, and feminist research methodologies. She is a leading figure in feminist autoethnography and experimental academic writing, and the founder of DRAW – Departing Radically in Academic Writing, a global scholarly community that invites writers to think differently about voice, ethics, and imagination in academic work. For Liz, writing is not just a way of reporting research, but a method of thinking, caring, and intervening in the world.

Teaching

Liz’s teaching spans arts education, Indigenous Australian education, Gender Studies, and qualitative research methods. Her pedagogy is grounded in feminist, relational, and decolonial approaches that value embodied knowledge, critical reflection, and ethical engagement. She is a highly experienced supervisor of higher degree research students and is deeply committed to mentoring emerging scholars with generosity, care, and intellectual rigour.

Service

In addition to her teaching and research, Liz has made sustained contributions to academic leadership and service. She has served as Chair of Human Research Ethics at Southern Cross University and has held senior ethics leadership roles across her career. Internationally, she serves on the editorial board of Qualitative Research and is the Ethics Section Editor for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research.

Across all aspects of her work, Liz is known for weaving together scholarship, ethics, creativity, and care — working towards more just, inclusive, and humane educational institutions.