Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews

Biography

Professor Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews is an inland (Bidigal/Nataimattagal – Bitter/Sweet waters) D’harawal scholar who currently works as the Director of Indigenous Research within the Division of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Leadership (DDVC-IL) at Western Sydney University (WSU). Gawaian’s academic career has primarily focused on Indigenous Research Methodologies, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, and Indigenous Storywork, and has engaged with a wide diversity of methods (e.g., Indigenous Yarning, Critical Indigenous Quantitative Methods, D’harawal Storytelling, Circle Yarning) and has constantly sought to privilege Indigenous and First Nations standpoints across a diversity of research areas (including racism, identity, mental health, higher-education, mentoring, bullying, and environmental justice). Their research outputs include over 60 refereed publications (including two edited books), numerous industry/community reports, and a number of non-traditional outputs (e.g., Healing Wounds Of The Heart Racism Documentary and the D’harawal Knowledges video outputs for the First Nations Garden at WSU Campbelltown Campus). Gawaian has won over $3,000,000 in research grants and tenders (e.g., ARC Discovery Indigenous/Linkage, NHMRC, AIATSIS, Cumberland Plains Research Grants), and has supervised to completion eight PhD students (five Aboriginal Australian). They have also serve/d as an Indigenous representative on numerous committees within WSU (e.g., DDVC-IL Leadership Group, WSU Research Studies Committee, WSU Human Research Ethics Committee, WSU Academic Senate), and numerous external Indigenous committees including as Deputy Chair for the Indigenous Steering Committee for the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, the Aurora Education Foundation’s Indigenous Data Governance Committee, and the Aboriginal Housing Office’s Aboriginal Research and Knowledge Advisory Group. Gawaian is also a proud member and primary point of contact for the D’harawal Traditional Descendants and Knowledge Holders Circle (primarily relating to local community activities), and is a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the Australian Association for Research in Education, and was a founding member of Maiam nayri Wingara Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective.