Rate My Professor Connor Goddard

Connor Goddard serves as an Associate Lecturer and PhD researcher in the School of Design and the Built Environment at Curtin University, within the Faculty of Humanities. He is the Major Coordinator for the Geography program and contributes to teaching across Geography and Urban and Regional Planning programs. Employed as a Casual Academic in Geography since August 2020, Goddard coordinates the Geography major and supports academic activities in the discipline.

His PhD project, spanning 2020 to 2024, is titled "How are sea/tree change rural communities sustained? Exploring how place attachment is formed and how community is performed." This research seeks to identify elements of place and local community key in developing and sustaining attachments to place within rural and remote areas of Western Australia. Drawing on case studies from Hopetoun and Kalbarri, the study utilizes qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, to delve into concepts such as place attachment, belonging, post-productivism, community, and path dependence. It further investigates personal narratives, experiences across the life-course, transitions, and factors influencing counter-urbanisation flows alongside prolonged place attachments. The work aims to extend theoretical understandings within human geography and rural geography. Goddard presented related research at the 2024 American Association of Geographers annual meeting with the paper “Is it too late to move – again?” Two-step migration and decision-making in non-traditional rural retirement destinations. He also contributed a book review of Thinking Geographically to Geographical Research, published online in June 2025.