Georgie has over 25 years’ experience in early childhood education, applied research and policy development and delivery of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment projects including professional development for teachers. She has successfully managed and led major early childhood education and care and school system research projects for the Northern Territory Government and Menzies’ Centre for Child Development and Education including analyses of national and international evidence-based interventions across health, child protection, community services and education disciplines to support compelling change agendas.

Georgie now works in the initial teacher education program at Charles Darwin University and enjoys the privilege of working with community and organisation lead research projects.

Impact in national policy includes working on COAG Taskforce for Indigenous Early Childhood Development to incorporate NT specific perspectives and international evidence base for policy, programs and assessment. System impact was demonstrated in NT Department Employment, Education and Training’s Transforming Indigenous Education research, development and evaluation of the reform of school programs and community development (and engagement) processes.  Georgie has been a member of the Early Childhood Education and Care Key Stakeholders Advisory Group to the Department of Education to provide academic input and feedback on NT policy design, development and review.This has included research presentations and submission contributions.

Georgie’s Program impact includes the NHMRC project: Evaluation of the effectiveness of mobile preschool for child health and development in remote Aboriginal communities in the NT which was the first cohort comparison study utilising the Australian Early Development Census data in a multi-level, multi factor analysis of outcomes with linked data. This study contributed to the evidence based for alternative service delivery models that also focused on building capacity of local, Indigenous educators. Internationally, HANDS (Halimar, Apprende no Deskobre Sesusu) and INFORDEPE – Peskiza Capacity building projects contributed to theTimor-Leste Ministry of Education and the National Teacher Institute collaboration to develop preschool teacher quality and research skills. The key outcomes were a national professional learning needs analysis for preschool teachers and evaluation and monitoring training for research division culminating in collaboratively designed research proposals for consideration by Minister.

Community impact has been the result of constructive working relationships with schools and being invited as research partner on projects such as: Sanderson Alliance Collective Impact in which five urban schools and over eight community welfare, health, arts and cultural organisations partnered to take data driven decisions and actions on issues such as domestic violence. Key outcomes included a data informed and evidenced base decision making in community lead research, monitoring and evaluation. This led to the research design collaboration with some of these schools adopting the Berry Street Model of Education (this project is due for completion December 2021)and is now complemented by the CDU funded Self-regulation and executive function project.  
Our impact is expected to include school program and public behaviours with the examination of self-regulation skills, classroom experiences, teacher self-efficacy and pathways to academic outcomes. Initial findings of student surveys in the Conversation attracted a great deal of interest across NT media outlets. 

Georgie is committed to supporting educators in the NT becoming the best they can be through professional learning, collective approaches and continuous quality improvements to professionalism, whilst contributing to the practice and research evidence base.