Past Team Members

Chief/Partner Investigator

Shanthi ROBERTSON

Shanthi ROBERTSON is the Executive Director of The Insight Centre, a research consultancy for social purpose and public interest organisations, and Adjunct Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at Western Sydney University. With 20 years’ experience across academic research and research consulting, she has worked with Commissions, government departments, advocacy organisations and universities, leading research for evidence-driven communications and advocacy, and working with culturally and linguistically diverse and First Nations communities. Her academic work has gained national and international recognition in migration, cultural diversity, youth studies and urban sociology. Shanthi was a former Chief Investigator and Partner Investigator on YMAP.

Project Officers

Laura GOBEY

Dr Laura GOBEY has worked at Deakin University as a sessional academic and research assistant. Laura’s research focuses on the intersection of youth and migration studies. She has recently completed her PhD, which examines how young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds are constructed within Australian government and third sector youth policies.

Anna VASSADIS

Prior to joining the YMAP team, Dr Anna VASSADIS worked as a research assistant and in research administration on a wide range of research projects. She has a PhD in Sociology and is experienced with qualitative research methods. Anna’s research interests include ethnicity, ethnic identity and culture, multiculturalism and migration. She also thoroughly enjoys providing technical and operational support for research activity.

Survey Manager

Simon CHAMBERS

Dr Simon CHAMBERS' research background is in cultural sociology and the application of methodologies which bring together quantitative and qualitative analysis in a complementary manner. A consultant at APRA AMCOS and the Australian Music Centre, he has also worked on a range of ARC projects spanning the dynamics of Australian cultural fields, the value of music exports and the development of personalised recommendation algorithms. His recently submitted PhD examined the notion of distance in the similarity and familiarity of music.

Research Associates

Xinyu (Andy) ZHAO

Dr Xinyu (Andy) ZHAO is Associate Research Fellow in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. He completed his PhD at Deakin University in 2020 and is particularly interested in the intersections of transnational mobility, digital technologies and young people. His PhD thesis was an ethnographic study of how Chinese international students in Australia make sense and use of social media in and across the spheres of everyday life.

Lara McKENZIE

Dr Lara McKENZIE is a Research Fellow at Deakin University and The University of Western Australia, and an Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology at Macquarie University. Her research focuses on Australia, particularly on gender, age, love, kinship, family, reproduction, and cultural change. Lara’s book, Age-dissimilar couples and romantic relationships: Ageless love? (2015), explores age-dissimilar couples in Australia. She has also undertaken research on inequality and cultural difference in education. Lara also conducted a study on recent PhD graduates’ experiences of looking for stable academic work, and her writing here addresses the themes of gender, age, family, precarity, and audit practices.

Johanne ELDRIDGE

Johanne ELDRIDGE is a first-generation young adult migrant from the United Kingdom, and PhD candidate in Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia. Her interdisciplinary research backgrounds in psychology, public health, and sociology/anthropology focus upon identifying the adverse effects of transnational youth mobility (e.g. psychosocial isolation, discrimination, and sense of disconnect); and whether the protective role(s) of social and familial relationships maximize life chances and wellbeing that are crucial to their engagement as positive transnational citizens throughout the life-course.