Board of Directors
Foundation for Australian Literary Studies Board of Directors
Paul Hardisty has spent over 30 years working all over the world as an environmental scientist and engineer, including in some of the world’s most dangerous places.
His love of literature goes back to his earliest days, fuelled by parents who loved to read and travel. He wrote his first story at 5 on his dad's old typewriter, and is now the author of seven novels, including The Abrupt Physics of Dying, set in Yemen during the 1994 civil war, which was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger. His fifth novel Turbulent Wake, was named by several UK book sites as their Book of the Year for 2019. His latest novel THE DESCENT follows on from the best-selling climate thriller The FORCING, which was short-listed for the 2023 Crime Fiction Lovers Awards. Paul's latest non-fiction book, IN HOT WATER: Inside the Battle to Save the Great Barrier Reef, is out in May 2024.
Paul lives in Perth with his wife Heidi.
BSc(Hons) PhD Brist. FREng FTSE CEng FIChemE FIEAust, FRSC
Professor Simon Biggs commenced his appointment as Vice Chancellor and President of James Cook University Australia in February 2022. He is responsible for ensuring clear and effective leadership and management of the University across all operating sites, including campuses in Cairns, Townsville and Singapore.
Educated at the University of Bristol in the UK, Professor Biggs holds a PhD in Colloid Science.
Professor Biggs’ main research interests are in the field of colloid and interface engineering. He was the chief investigator on numerous research projects and has authored more than 270 refereed publications as well as being named on over 20 patents.
Professor Biggs is an experienced board member with numerous appointments in both Australia and the UK over the last 20 years. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2011 and in 2016, as a Fellow of the Australian Academy for Technological Sciences and Engineering.
Roger Osborne is the Roderick Associate Professor in English Literature at JCU, within the Roderick Centre for English Literature and Creative Writing.
Roger is a leader in the field of Australia literary studies. As well as his roles at JCU, he is President of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Vice-President of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, and a member of the advisory committee for AustLit.
Roger is a prize-winning scholar in Australian literary studies for his research on the novels of Joseph Furphy and also his research on the long history of American editions of Australian novels. As a scholarly editor, he is a contributor to the award-winning Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad. He is currently completing the second volume of American Books and Authors in the American Marketplace, and, as Chief Investigator, finalising research on the serialisation of novels in twentieth century newspapers in the ARC-funded Special Research Initiative, “Read all about it: Digital participation in Australian Newspapers” (SR200200521, 2021–24).
BCom JCU, FCPA, FAICD, FAIM
Ms Tricia Brand is the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Services and Resources Division at James Cook University and a member of the University Executive.
Tricia heads a Division that is responsible for the University’s Estate, Human Resources, Technology Solutions, Marketing, Future Students and Admissions, the TropiQ Development, retail and commercial developments, Work Health and Safety and Student Accommodation.
Tricia is a Director of a number of companies, including:
- Director, Tropical Queensland Centre of Oral Health Pty Ltd
- Director, CPB Pty Ltd ATF The CPB Trust
- Director, JCU Health Pty Ltd
- Director, James Cook Holdings Pte Ltd (Singapore)
- Director, James Cook University Pte Ltd (Singapore)
- Chair, Finance Committee – a sub-committee of James Cook University Pte Ltd (Singapore)
- Director, Finance Committee, a sub-committee of the Townsville Health & Hospitals Board
- Director, Foundation for Australian Literary Studies
- Trustee, Colin and Margaret Roderick Trust
- Trustee, Margaret and Colin Roderick Trust
Tricia has over 40 years’ experience in the higher education sector, the majority of which has been operating at senior executive and management levels. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree and postgraduate qualification of CPA and is a Fellow of CPA Australia, Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Institute of Management.
John is AusIndustry’s Regional Manager for North Queensland. John has coordinated MBA Programs at James Cook University and at La Trobe University’s Graduate School of Management. John has run his own consulting company and been a senior manager in the Higher Education sector for over 13 years. He has also been a board member for several organisations including Australian Festival of Chamber Music.
Victoria Kuttainen, Associate Prof. of English and Writing at JCU, holds a BA Hons and MA from the University of British Columbia, and gained a PhD from the University of Queensland when she came to Australia as an international student on a double scholarship (SSHRC/UQIPRS) to study with the Postcolonial Research Group at UQ. Her primary areas of research in literature studies are the literatures of Australia and Canada, magazine modernisms, settler colonialism, transnationalism, and the print culture of late colonial modernity.
She convenes the international research group Planetary Material Modernisms, and is a peer reviewer for JASAL -- the Journal of the Association for Australian Literary Studies, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Modernism/modernity, JAS Journal of Australian Studies, ALS Australian Literary Studies, and Canadian Literature.
Recent publications include the 2018 book The Transported Imagination: Australian Interwar Magazines and the Geographical Imaginaries of Colonial Modernity (co-authored by Susann Liebich and Sarah Galletly), and a 2019 article 'Lost in the (National) Archive: The Modern Girl and the Magazine’ that appeared in a special cluster on magazines and digital humanities in Modernism/modernity.
Victoria serves on the Advisory Board for the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC) as well as on the editorial board of the Palgrave McMillan series Material Modernisms.
She is an award-winning lecturer and an enthusiastic promoter of the role of Arts and Humanities in community, especially in the regions. In 2019 she was the Writer in Residence at The Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver, Canada.
BA (Hons English) UQ, ATCL, LSDA, Grad. Dip. Lib and Information Science QUT, MBA JCU
Mary Gallagher has taught English and Australian Literature at the University of Queensland, James Cook University and the Townsville College of Advanced Education, developing a specialised knowledge of Australian literature. She was the Head Librarian at the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE from 1988 to 2007.
An experienced researcher, proof reader and editor, Mary has always cooperated in her husband Don Gallagher's major research into the writer Evelyn Waugh, most recently contributing substantially to his Oxford University Press publication, The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh, volume 26, Essays, Articles and Reviews 1922-1934 (2018).
During the many years that Don Gallagher, as Executive Director, was the mainstay of the Foundation, Mary read and discussed entries to facilitate the judging, publicised books and events, organised annual dinners and looked after visiting lecturers and prize winners. Together the Gallaghers achieved one of Colin and Margaret Roderick’s main aims for the Foundation: the involvement of ‘town’ as well as ‘gown’ in the appreciation of Australian literature, notably by encouraging the participation of local readers, book groups, and the general public in Foundation activities, lectures, dinners and interactions with visiting writers.
Mary supported fresh initiatives for FALS, cooperated in cultural events with other bodies such as the Townsville City Council, its Library and Perc Tucker Gallery, and fostered generational change by bringing new and younger directors on to the Board.
Bethany Keats is a communications advisor for the Innovative Research Universities and a former producer and journalist at ABC Radio Australia. She is also pursuing a PhD in creative writing and history at James Cook University.
Bethany can’t remember a time when she didn’t love books and reading. Literature was one of her favourite subjects at school and she studied Spanish literature as part of her undergraduate degree.
She has a Master of Marketing in Public Relations and Image Marketing from Deakin University, a Bachelor of Arts (Languages) in Japanese and Spanish from Monash University, and a Diploma of Sustainable Living from the University of Tasmania.
Bethany is a former board member of 94.7 The Pulse community radio in Geelong and current co-editor of Sūdō Journal.
BA (Hons English), Grad. B. Ed JCU, ATCL.
Helene Kotzas-Lazaredes is a High School English teacher and has been a faithful FALS supporter since 1998.
At the urging of lecturers: Don Gallagher, Anthony Hassall, John Grey and Peter Pierce, Helene and the rest of her Honours cohort attended the annual Colin Roderick Award Dinner and she was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm for Australian Literature in our regional city.
Her interest in the local arts and theatre community meant that she came into regular contact with Don and Mary Gallagher who encouraged her to become actively involved on the FALS board as a member of the non-academic community.
Helene is dedicated to supporting the ongoing study of Australian Literature through her professional role as a Senior English and Literature teacher.