Research

SSSHARC curates a changing roster of interdisciplinary and collaborative research nodes that foreground excellence, innovation, creativity and engagement in the humanities and social sciences at their broadest stretch.

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We leverage the high reputation of HASS-related research at the University to capitalise on external funding opportunities. Specifically, we

- Create/promote incubation opportunities to enable competitive funding applications

- Build capacity and transparency around the funding journey

- Deliver a program to help researchers diversify funding streams

- Scaffold leadership opportunities for academics and professional staff into all our activities

We deepen relationships and foster innovation and excellence by modelling a non-hierarchical collaborative research ecology. Specifically, we

- Encourage meaningful engagement in an open and playful environment

- Create a network of support and shared language around research engagement

- Develop outward-reaching engagement programs

- Activate our competitive fellowship schemes for broader collaboration

We celebrate and share research findings, insights, and methodologies with diverse audiences and communities of practice. Specifically, we

Spotlight and amplify research excellence
Connect researchers with University resources around media, communications, engagement, social enterprise, and commercialisation
Create opportunities for knowledge transfer between academics and early career researchers
Are committed to diversity in all dimensions of research and research engagement.

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Hunt-Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies (HISS)

The Institute brings together emerging and established researchers in sexuality studies to collectively engage the notion of a queer-led classroom.

The Hunt-Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies (HISS@SSSHARC) brings together emerging and established researchers within queer theory, LGBTQIA+ studies, and their cognate fields. Since its inception in 2023, HISS@SSSHARC has been centered on embodied learning and collective knowledge building in and around the classroom.

Building on generalist subjects rather than specialist disciplines, participants engage in a series of workshops led by internationally successful queer professionals. The Institute is built on the observation that all of us, young or old, established or emerging, have been school students at some time and might usefully revisit that experience in a queer-led context.

HISS was always conceived as a three-year venture. Across HISS 2023 and 2024, the HISS faculty and students learned a lot about cohort building. In HISS 2025, we want to reflect on what we have learned under the theme of Homecoming.

Follow us on Twitter to learn more about the 2025 Institute and related events.

Homecoming is a term from the North American schooling system and other metaverses that signals a particular kind of reunion or coming together with institutional or franchise purpose.

The HISS Homecoming will allow us to collectively reflect on and generate some provisional closure around the queer educational journey we commenced three years ago.

We know that the moment of teaching is not necessarily in sync with the time of learning, so we want to find out how our alumni are faring in their lives and careers and if the experience of HISS shaped them in any way. Those experiences have certainly shaped us.

We also want to provide a laddered environment where HISS alumni can facilitate the induction of a new cohort into the HISS paradigm.

Above all, we want the last dance to generate a school charter that we can publish alongside the HISS Yearbook of school photographs and reflections from the contributors across the three-year span of our experimental school.

As always, these reflections will happen in class, as we run through the standard curriculum of sex education, physical education, science and art, and lunch together at the long tables in the Women’s College canteen.

By situating inclusivity in the broader context of schooling, learning and pedagogy, we hope to bring out new understandings of attachment, friendship, community, affect and thriving that could underwrite a new kind of charter for queer learning in place.

As in previous years, the HISS faculty will lead two-hour workshops loosely linked to their research expertise.

Everyone – including all the faculty members – will participate in these workshops, which are framed as revisitings of classroom subjects of the kind we all used to learn before we became divided by disciplinary specialism.

HISS participants can expect to attend classes in Art, Science, Music, Media, Sex Education and P.E.

We understand that much school learning occurs outside the classroom, so fieldtrips will be arranged, as well as school photographs.

There will be a formal (the Australian version of a prom) to mark the end of school.

HISS 2025 will be co-directed by Lee Wallace and Victoria Rawlings. The international teaching cohort represents the full breadth of sexuality studies and a full range of career stages. Our confirmed contributors are:

Associate Professor Adam Greteman (Art Education, SAIC), also participated in the delivery of HISS 2023 and 2024. Adam has written on liking and queer thriving in education settings. He is a key investigator in a project on intergenerational dialogue between queer seniors and queer youth that has recently received funding from the Spencer Foundation.

Dr Xavier Ho (Interaction Design, Monash University) is an emerging leader in queer game studies. Xavier contributed to HISS 2023 and 2024 and was the creative force behind the “45” light mural and Pride at Play, an exhibition showcasing 23 queer games from around the Asia Pacific region, both of which featured in Pride Amplified in association with WorldPride Sydney.

Professor Yuko Itatsu (Information Studies, University of Tokyo) has a current interdisciplinary project on Artificial Intelligence and diversity. Yuko participated in HISS 2024.

Professor Pamela Lannutti, directs the Centre for Human Sexuality Studies at Widener University. Pamela is an expert on queer relationship maintenance, resilience and sustainability, as well as family communication and estrangement. Pam delivered our Sex Education class in 2024.

Dr Sam Stiegler (Education, University of Melbourne) contributed to HISS in 2023 and his first book was launched at HISS 2024. Sam is an expert on qualitative research methodologies in the queer, trans and non-binary youth space.

Dr Indigo Willing (Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University) is a leading scholar in the emerging field of skateboard studies. As a consultant, Indigo has led projects on diversity, equity, and inclusion development for Skate Australia (2022) and conducted scoping research on anti-Asian racism and strategies to challenge it for the Australian Human Rights Commission (2023). Indigo contributed to HISS 2024.

Dr Kush Patel (Art, Design, and Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education) joins us for the first time in 2025. Kush is a scholar of participatory politics, narrative building and the social production of space, as well as a registered architect. He heads the Just Futures Co-lab at Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Bengaluru, India.

Dr Jessica Wright (Sociology and Gender Studies, MacEwan University) joins us from Edmonton in 2025. JJ’s current work focuses on understanding meaning-making about consent and gendered violence through the perspectives of queer and trans young people.

post it notes and stickers with abortion messaging on them

Access All Areas

Access All Areas is a research collective that works to advance reproductive freedom and access to abortion care for all.

We are an interdisciplinary team that carry out numerous projects, advocacy and collaborations beyond the University.

Our two current AAA projects are Abortion Desert Mapping Tool, funded through a Proof of Concept grant with the DVCR Strategic Research Impact Fund, and the Abortion in Australia podcast, a Research Impact Accelerator project.

We are committed to collaborative research as resistance to systems of oppression. We centre people who have abortions in our work and take an expansive view of abortion care, discourses and publics.

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Sexual Consent Education Program

Professor Lee Wallace and Dr Victoria Rawlings to support Consent Labs with school programs that seek to prevent sexual and gendered violence.

Researchers in SSSHARC won a $1.1 million grant to support Consent Labs, a national female-founded social enterprise and a leading provider of youth-facilitated, evidence-based consent and respectful relationship workshops in over 150 NSW schools.

The two-year research grant has been awarded by the Department of Communities and Justice to prevent gendered violence in schools through innovative educational programs and resources, including workshops and games, that can be implemented at scale.

SQUIGGLE - Sydney Queer Games for Learning and Education

Solving complex issues using games methodology

SQUIGGLE brings together queer theorists, educationalists and designers interested in using games methodology in support of gender inclusivity. We are particularly focussed on tabletop games where the emphasis is on transformative interpersonal exchange.

2025 Fellowship Collaborations

The SSSHARC Visiting Fellows program brings together outstanding researchers of international standing to enhance research in humanities and social sciences at the University of Sydney.

Our Gilbert Fellows are:

Associate Professor Venu Arora (O.P. Jindal Global University) will work with Dr Diana Chester (MECO) and Lea Redfern (MECO) on innovative audio pedagogies for social justice and digital rights.
Professor Helene Martinsson-Wallin (University of Uppsala) will work with Associate Professor James Flexner (Archaeology) and staff at the Chau Chak Wing Museum.
Dr Laura Strolin (Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology) will collaborate with Dr Melissa Kennedy (Archaeology) on a comparative study of mustatil faunal assemblages and settlements.
Professor Gerd Van Riel (University of Leuven) will collaborate with Professor Julia Kindt (CLAH), Dr Emily Hulme (Philosophy) and Dr James Collin (CLAH) on ancient Greek views on personal religion.

Our Hunt-Simes Fellows are:

Associate Professor Adam Greteman (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) will be involved in the delivery of the Hunt-Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies (HISS) 2025.
Professor Pamela Lannutti (Widener University) will also be involved in the delivery of HISS 2025.
Professor Amanda Denes (University of Connecticut) will be working with Dr Mandy Henningham (Sociology) on a project exploring bi+ (bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, etc) people’s experiences from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives.
Dr Xavier Ho (Monash University) will be involved in the delivery of HISS 2025.
Dr Kush Patel (Manipal Academy of Higher Education) will contribute to the delivery of HISS 2025 and work with Dr Susan Potter (Film Studies) on queer-feminist visual methodologies and pedagogies as they engage queer archives in the region.
Dr Joseph Plaster (Johns Hopkins University) will work with the University Librarian Philip Kent and Dr Shiva Chandra (SCHS) on a Sydney derivative of his Peabody Ballroom Experience.
Dr Sam Stiegler (University of Melbourne) will be involved in the delivery of HISS 2025.
Dr Jessica Wright (MacEwan University) will be involved in the delivery of HISS 2025 and will also collaborate with Dr Victoria Rawlings (Education) on the development of public-facing educational resources.

Our James Fellows are:

Professor Luna Dolezal (University of Exeter) will collaborate with Professor Kane Race (GCS), Dr Shiva Chandra (SCHS) and Dr Supriya Subramani (Public Health) on shame, medicine, and moral emotions in healthcare environments.
Dr Jennifer M Lavoie (University of Edinburgh) will collaborate with Associate Professor Luara Ferracioli (Philosophy) on the idea of moral parenthood.

Contact us

Email
sssharc.research@sydney.edu.au