Australia Awards South and West Asia

Daizy Maan is leading Deakin University’s start-up entrepreneurship initiative, SPARK Deakin, for more than 250,000 students and alumni. She serves as an advisory board member to the University’s Centre for Sustainable and Responsible Organisation, and she is currently the youngest Director at Australia’s largest publicly listed community banking company.

Previously she co-founded Zana Consulting during her time in Tanzania and is the Founder of Social Enterprise Collective (SeCo), an organisation which exists to bring together young change-makers. She also volunteered in Thailand as a DFAT-supported Australian Young Ambassador for Development, supporting asylum seekers and refugees through legal aid.

In 2018 she was a delegate to the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance in Argentina and in 2019 she was selected as a delegate for the Australia India Youth Dialogue. She is passionate about women in leadership and has advocated for gender equality through the Pink Ladoo campaign, which has been featured in India Link, Herald Sun and SBS Punjabi.

Ms Susan Coles is the Deputy State Director for DFAT Victoria. She joined this office following three and a half years as Australia’s High Commissioner and Ambassador in the Indian Ocean region, with responsibility for Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar and the Comoros. In this role, Susan contributed to regional foreign and economic diplomacy, development initiatives, and trade promotion. She launched initiatives around the ocean economy, entrepreneurship and training for women and girls, corporate social responsibility in the mining sector (Madagascar and Africa more broadly), educational and alumni partnerships, and strengthening the Indian Ocean Rim Association.

As a South Australian Rhodes Scholar, Susan completed her post-graduate studies in International and European Law at the University of Oxford. Having served on the Australia-at-Large selection panel for the Rhodes Scholarships, she now brings International Relations expertise to the Sir John Monash Scholarships panel, in Melbourne.

Prof John Murphy teaches and researches Australian politics and history, and comparative social policy history, with a developing focus on Indonesian social protection. He has expertise in social policy, examined historically and comparatively. He has published research on Australian social, political and policy history, public narratives about welfare, masculinity and nation, and memory, historiography and biography.

He previously taught at RMIT University, where he was Director of the Centre for Applied Social Research. In the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, he was previously the Associate Dean (Research and Research Training), Assistant Dean for the PhD Program and Acting Dean, and is currently Deputy Dean.

Dr Helen Szoke AO is Chief Executive of Oxfam Australia. She is a strong advocate for foreign aid and international development, human rights, gender and race equity.

Dr Szoke previously served as Australia’s Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner and as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner. She is both a Vice-President and a board member of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), and the ACFID Humanitarian Reference Group (HRG) Champion. Dr Szoke sits as an Executive Board Member for Oxfam International and is also a Board member of the Cranlana Foundation. She was appointed a member of the Council of the University of Melbourne on 15 May 2018.

Dr Szoke has contributed her expertise on a number of advisory groups investigating racism, bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment, in both government and government agency organisations, and in medical professional bodies.

She is a graduate of the University of Tasmania, Deakin University, and has a PhD in Public Policy Regulation from the University of Melbourne.

Dr Helen Szoke AO is Chief Executive of Oxfam Australia. She is a strong advocate for foreign aid and international development, human rights, gender and race equity.

Dr Szoke previously served as Australia’s Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner and as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner. She is both a Vice-President and a board member of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), and the ACFID Humanitarian Reference Group (HRG) Champion. Dr Szoke sits as an Executive Board Member for Oxfam International and is also a Board member of the Cranlana Foundation. She was appointed a member of the Council of the University of Melbourne on 15 May 2018.

Dr Szoke has contributed her expertise on a number of advisory groups investigating racism, bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment, in both government and government agency organisations, and in medical professional bodies.

She is a graduate of the University of Tasmania, Deakin University, and has a PhD in Public Policy Regulation from the University of Melbourne.