School of Humanities and Social Sciences Executive
The School of Humanities and Social Sciences is led by an experienced executive team who are leading scholars in their fields and passionate advocates for humanities and social sciences.
Professor Matt McGuire
Professor Matt McGuire is Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Professor of English Literature at La Trobe University. He has 25 years’ experience in the tertiary education sector of the UK and Australia. The first part of his career was spent at the University of Glasgow. The second part has been at Western Sydney University, the University of Sydney and now, at La Trobe University. As a literary studies scholar, Matt’s research focuses on the role of literature in the aftermath of political conflict, with a focus on Irish writing. Alongside his scholarly work, he is the author of two crime novels, set in post-Troubles Northern Ireland. Professor McGuire also researches higher education and is currently working on a book entitled University Reimagined: Asia-Pacific Perspectives on the Future of Higher Education. Professor McGuire has held a number of national leadership positions including President of the peak body of his discipline (Australian Universities’ Heads of English) and Board Member of DASSH, the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. His qualifications include a Master of Arts (Hons), Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh, an Executive MBA from the Sydney Graduate School of Management, and a certificate in educational leadership from Harvard University.
Dr Helena Menih
Dr Helena Menih is Associate Dean, Learning and Teaching, in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University. She brings extensive experience in academic leadership, curriculum governance, and learning and teaching innovation, having previously served as the School’s Coordinator of Learning and Teaching. In these roles, Helena has contributed to course architecture processes, overseen quality assurance initiatives, and contributed to strategic educational projects aligned with university priorities, including Education 2030 and the integration of emerging learning technologies. A criminologist and sociologist with a strong national and international research profile, Helena’s scholarship focuses on gender, agency, spatiality, women’s homelessness, and family and domestic violence. Her work has shaped public policy discussions, informed parliamentary inquiries, and contributed to industry partnered research that addresses social justice and inequality. She is widely published in leading journals, has secured significant competitive funding, and collaborates across disciplines and community sectors to drive research with impact. Known for her collaborative and consultative leadership style, Helena is committed to fostering inclusive, innovative, and high quality learning environments. She works closely with colleagues to support educational excellence, enhance student experience, and strengthen a culture of continuous improvement across the School.
Associate Professor Claudia Haake
Associate Professor Claudia Bettina Haake is Associate Dean, Academic and International Partnerships, in the School of Humanities and Social Science at La Trobe University. She is a historian and has written widely on American Indian removal and writing, publishing in leading journals and with publishers internationally. Her work has been used in legal cases and also internally by tribes in the United States. Claudia has studied, lived and worked in six countries and maintains extensive international networks. She has also run international conferences. She has secured competitive funding in several countries and, most recently, held a Future Fellowship from the ARC. Claudia has a particular strength in Indigenous Studies and benefits from a wide international network in that area (USA, Canada, New Zealand). She was also a founding member of the UK-based Native Studies network. Claudia is committed to strengthening and expanding international partnerships and to broadening placement opportunities for students.
Associate Professor Claire Knowles
Claire Knowles is an Associate Professor of English and the Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures. She received her PhD from the University of Melbourne and worked there and at the University of Tasmania before moving to La Trobe University in 2009. Associate Professor Knowles’s research focuses on women writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and on the intersection between Romanticism and emergent forms of popular literary culture. She also writes on the gothic, and as taught gothic TV, film and fiction for many years. Her latest book is Della Cruscan Poetry, Women, and the Fashionable Newspaper (2023). She co-authored a scholarly edition, Charlotte Smith: Major Poetic Works (Broadview, 2017) with Ingrid Horrocks and poets such as Charlotte Smith, Susan Evance, Letitia Landon and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were the focus of her first book, Sensibility and Female Poetic Tradition, 1780-1860: The Legacy of Charlotte Smith (2009). She is currently putting together an edition of British Women Romantic Poets for the Oxford World's Classics imprint and is also working on a number of other research projects including one on "Romanticism and Australia" with colleagues from La Trobe, Monash University, The University of Wollongong, and University College Dublin. She is the Immediate Past President of the Romantic Studies Association of Australaisia.
Associate Professor Emma Robertson
Associate Professor Emma Robertson is Head of Department of Archaeology and History. She is a social and cultural historian of labour, women and gender in the context of modern Britain and the British empire. Her first book, Chocolate, Women and Empire: A Social and Cultural History (2009) drew on PhD research at the University of York into the history of the Rowntree confectionery company, and the lives of women chocolate workers at different stages of the cocoa commodity chain. She went on to study the history of music in the workplace, resulting in the coauthored book, Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain (2013). Most recently she published BBC World Service: Overseas Broadcasting, 1932-2018 (with Gordon Johnston, 2019) and she has several articles and book chapters on radio in imperial contexts. Her current ARC-funded Discovery Project (DP160102764), with Professor Diane Kirkby and Dr Lee-Ann Monk, explores the history of women working in non-traditional occupations in Britain and Australia, particularly on the buses, trams and railways. She is an Associate Editor of Labour History. Associate Professor Robertson lives and works in Bendigo, on Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung Country, moving from her home city of York (United Kingdom) in 2011.
Associate Professor Miriam Bankovsky
Associate Professor Miriam Bankovsky is Head of the Department of Politics, Media, and Philosophy, and an Associate Professor in Politics. Associate Professor Bankovsky’s early work focused on theories of justice in philosophy, leading to the publication of Perfecting Justice (2012) and two co-edited collections, Penser la reconnaissance and Recognition theory (2012, with Alice Le Goff) and Contemporary French moral and political philosophy (2012, with Alice Le Goff). Associate Professor Bankovsky's current research examines how economists have studied birth control, contraception, and abortion, in order to provide a critical history of how we think about reproduction. He most recent book is Economics and the family: A social and political history (2024). Associate Professor Bankovsky’s research on economic envy received the Australasian Association of Philosophy’s Annette Baier Prize in 2017.
Associate Professor Anthony Moran
Anthony Moran is an Associate Professor of Sociology and the Head of the Department of Social Inquiry. He completed a Masters and a PhD at the University of Melbourne and held a Leverhulme Trust travelling research fellowship at the University of the West of England, Bristol before starting at La Trobe University in 2002. Prior to his role as Head of Department, Anthony served as the Director of Graduate Research in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (2021-2025). He teaches and researches in the areas of race, ethnicity, nationalism, migration and multiculturalism. He is the author of Racism (Key Ideas Series, Routledge, 2024), The Public Life of Australian Multiculturalism: Building a Diverse Nation (Palgrave, 2017), Australia: Nation, Belonging and Globalization (Routledge, 2005), the co-author of Ordinary People’s Politics (Pluto Press Australia, 2006) and the author of many academic journal articles and book chapters on the above-mentioned research topics. He is a CI with a team of researchers on a multi-university, multi-site ARC Linkage Project (LP250100048) titled Investigating Whole-of-Community Approaches to Regional Migration, Settlement and Retention, which begins in 2026 and will continue for four years, with one case study focused on Mildura, Victoria. Anthony has collaborated with several government and non-government agencies for research projects and community forums, including commissioned research for the Victorian Multicultural Commission on cohesion and multiculturalism in Shepparton and Mildura, with the findings published in the co-authored report Understanding Social Cohesion in Shepparton and Mildura (November 2015).
Ms Lorraine Ward
Ms Lorraine Ward is Senior Manager in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. She has a strong management background across several sectors, including sports management and local government. Ms Ward is an alumna of La Trobe University and Swinburne University. In her role as Senior Manager, she is primary adviser to the Dean and the School Executive in relation to University policies, operations and business processes, while also leading the professional administrative team.