Associate Professor Susan Mlcek's interests reflect her teaching and learning qualifications and experience, including Andragogy – the science of helping adults to learn. Furthermore, at the heart of her academic practice – in both learning and teaching, and research – lie two influences: the significance of her Indigeneity, and her engagement with Andragogy. From a Kaupapa Maori worldview, and an auto-ethnographical stance, the influence of being Māori-Indigenous with its spiritual and tribal connections, and her ongoing quest to address the 'science of helping adults to learn' [Eduard Lindeman 1927, in Brookfield 1987], is woven through personal pedagogy that privileges inclusive practice which is also about working within a social justice framework of equity, access, participation and rights of people. These ideas serve to highlight the juxtaposition of those strands that Susan upholds at all levels of research, learning and teaching: cultural competence, community development, critical reflection in adult teaching and learning, and curriculum development and delivery.

• Auto-ethnography
• Community eco-development
• Indigenous philosophy, knowledges, theories and  research methods
• Critical whiteness studies

Memberships of Advisory Boards and Panels:

• Member of the CSU Indigenous Board of Studies
• Qualifications equivalence and academic standards Panel Member
• Lead for FoAE with CSU Academy of Teaching Excellence

Strategic Research Areas:

• Environmental Justice and Governance for Social Change