New professor to boost QUT education research

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has taken a strategic step to ensure that influential education research will continue well beyond the retirement of baby boomer academics, with the appointment of Professor Barbara Comber to help mentor early and middle-career academics. Comber has joined the faculty as a research capacity building professor, responsible for helping faculty members with grant applications and publishing activities. Having recently served as a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts (a government body which funds a large amount of university research), and having been widely published herself, Comber brings extensive experience and expertise to this role. Comber’s previous appointment was as a professor in the School of Education at the University of South Australia, and as a key researcher at the Centre for Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures at the Hawke Research Institute. She said she wanted to come to QUT because of its excellent reputation for doing applied research on current policy issues.