Board of Directors

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.

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 Australian Literature at JCU, within the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing.
Roger is a leader in the field of Australia literary studies. As well as his roles at JCU, he is the Immediate Past President of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 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).

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.

Dr Wayne Bradshaw is Research Services Officer at the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library in Townsville. In this role he works closely with researchers from across JCU on a range of topics including publication strategies, open access publishing, research output classification, and use of JCU's online institutional repository, ResearchOnline@JCU. In addition to his role in the library, Wayne is an active researcher and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Tasmania with degrees in both English and Politics. He is the founding editor of the northern Queensland creative writing journal, Sudo Journal, and he has appeared as a guest on both The Young Idealist and Hermitix podcasts. Wayne's primary research focus is the historical influence of radical political philosophy on trends in literature, and his first book, The Ego Made Manifest: Max Stirner, Egoism, and the Modern Manifesto, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023. This is the first book to examine Max Stirner's contribution to the development of artistic and political manifestos in the early twentieth century, and has been described by Emeritus Professor John Carroll as "a masterpiece in the history of ideas."

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.