Staff Profiles
Professor Sally Male, Director
Dr Sally Male BE(Hons) PhD FIEAust is Professor of Engineering and Technology Education and Director of the Teaching and Learning Laboratory, and leads the Laboratory in research-informed enhancements to teaching and learning in the Faculty. Sally’s research interests are engineering and computing education and practice, curriculum development, inclusion, employability, and work integrated learning.
Sally works closely with students, practitioners, employers, professional bodies, university staff, and the Australian Council of Engineering Deans. She has coordinated electrical & electronic engineering design subjects, introduction to professional engineering, and engagement with professional practice.
Sally has served on engineering program accreditation panels for Engineers Australia and Engineering New Zealand. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, STEM columnist for the magazine of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, and a Fellow of Engineers Australia.
Associate Professor Juliana Kaya Prpic
Associate Professor Juliana Kaya Prpic is the Faculty's Indigenous Engineering Specialist. She teaches two multidisciplinary project-based subjects – ‘Leading Change in a Complex World’ and ‘Sustainability in Developing Communities’, where student teams have repeatedly won the State final in the Engineers without Borders Challenge. She supervises several PhD students in the Teaching & Learning Laboratory, and has numerous publications in the field of Engineering Education. Her research interests include Indigenous education, transdisciplinary and multi-cultural ways of knowing, transformational learning and reflective practice.
Dr Shannon Rios, Education Specialist
Shannon A. Rios is a Teaching Specialist in the Teaching and Learning Laboratory. Shannon received a Bachelor's and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia, in 2012 and 2017, respectively. He later attained a Masters of Education in expert teaching practice from Monash University in 2020.
Dr. Rios has worked as an educational leader in transitional education since 2017, most recently working as education strategy manager for Monash College and team leader for the diploma of IT. He has won or been nominated for several awards at Monash College including: learning and teaching, innovation and collaboration. He also received a nomination for Best Student Paper at the 2015 IEEE Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics conference
Dr. Rios is an inventor of one patent application and first author for several conference and journal articles. His research interests include differentiated education, fostering engagement, robotics and actuators.
Dr Ashlee Pearson, Lecturer
Ashlee Pearson is a Lecturer in the Teaching and Learning Laboratory. Ashlee is a mechanical engineer and biomedical scientist about to submit a PhD in Engineering Education at RMIT University. Ashlee’s doctoral research explores how critical thinking skills are defined, taught and assessed in undergraduate engineering education. With a research background on a range of scholarship of learning and teaching topics including published works on flipped classroom, peer evaluation of teamwork, investigating learning outcomes and integrating inclusion into curriculum, Ashlee is passionate about using research to inform and evaluate effective educational design. Ashlee also has taught in a range of courses at Monash University, RMIT University and The University of Sydney, primarily focusing on demonstrating design engineering subjects that support students in understanding the human and social impact of their work. This work led to various curriculum development projects including quiz writing, supporting the ‘flipping’ classroom process, integrating advanced manufacturing techniques (3D printing, laser cutting) into a design and build course as well as multiple curriculum mapping projects. Ashlee has also co-developed and run various professional development opportunities such as RMIT Faculty of Engineering's tutor training program and the Australasian Association for Engineering Education's Higher Degree by Research Student Symposium.
Josh Burridge, Lecturer
Josh Burridge has a background in software development and human computer interaction, with a Bachelor of Technology from RMIT University and a Master of Information Technology from The University of Sydney. He has leveraged software and HCI towards the development of new technologically-enabled laboratories in engineering education, and is about to submit his PhD titled "The Design and Evaluation of Laboratories in Engineering Education: The Purpose-First Approach".
Josh has extensive teaching experience in the software development, HCI, and computing professions spaces, ranging from modular software construction and design, to the usable design of applications, to IT project management, to computing careers and critical thinking, and was most recently an Associate Lecturer at The University of Sydney.
Josh's current research interests include technologically-enabled laboratories and their evaluation, novel ways to introduce students to programming, and the deep integration of authentic industry practices in computing education.
Melinda Sung, Senior Administrator
Melinda Sung is the Senior Administrator for the Teaching & Learning Laboratory in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at The University of Melbourne and is responsible for coordinating the Laboratory's events and professional development programs. Melinda has a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Commerce from the Australian National University and a Masters of International Development from RMIT University. Before working at the University of Melbourne, Melinda held administrative roles at the ANU, Monash University, RMIT University, CQUniversity and UNESCO in Bangkok and she also worked as an English Language teacher for several years in Melbourne. Melinda joined the TLL in January 2022.