Keynote speakers

Robyn Ober

Lead Researcher and Educator, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

Robyn is a Mamu/Djirribal woman from Far North Queensland. She is a Lead Researcher and educator at Batchelor Institute and has extensive experience in the Northern Territory that spans three decades. She is well renowned for her expertise of both-ways pedagogy, working to combine Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing, being and learning in teaching practice and research. Robyn’s PhD thesis is titled: Aboriginal English as a Social and Cultural Identity Marker in an Indigenous Tertiary Educational Context. Her educational and research leadership is internationally and nationally recognised and reflected in her numerous consultancies and research on education delivery, both-ways education, social linguistics and Indigenous research methodologies in the Northern Territory, national and international Indigenous educational contexts.

Bagele Chilisa

Professor of the Post Graduate Research and Evaluation Programme, University of Botswana

Bagele [Med, MA EdD (Research Design, Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation)] is a globally recognised scholar and a leading African thought leader who has written extensively on decolonizing research and evaluation methodologies. She currently drives the thinking on a Fifth research and evaluation Paradigm centering relationality, connectedness and spirituality in research and evaluation practice. Over the last 30 years, she has taught Research design, Measurement, and Evaluation courses to graduate and undergraduate students. She has served as Director of several grant funded projects and a member of the UNDP evaluation advisory board, IFAD evaluation advisory board, and a member of the International Evaluation Council. With over 80 publications, she has received multiple grants to conduct research and design interventions to address gender inequalities, power asymmetries and epistemic violence in development projects in Botswana and beyond. Her book, Indigenous Research Methodologies, drives thinking on a fifth paradigm and the integration of knowledge systems used at many universities worldwide.  She has served as a guest lecturer, speaker, resource person, and keynote speaker at several international Universities and conferences. She also conducts professional development workshops on indigenous research methodologies and on contextually and culturally relevant evaluation worldwide.  She is the recipient of multiple national and international awards.