Rate My Professor Marnee Shay

Professor Marnee Shay is an Aboriginal woman from the Ngen'giwumirri language group in the Daly River region of the Northern Territory, born in Brisbane and connected to Indigenous communities across South East Queensland. She holds the position of Professor and Deputy Head of School in the School of Education at The University of Queensland. A qualified and experienced secondary teacher, Professor Shay's research program is nationally and internationally recognised, with specializations in Indigenous education, codesign methodologies in Indigenous education research, Indigenous participation in STEM, youth studies, flexi schooling, and education policy. She leads an extensive externally funded research portfolio, including Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Indigenous projects such as 'Co-designing Indigenous education policy in Queensland' (2021-2025), ARC Linkage projects, government tenders from the Queensland Department of Education, and serves as Chief Investigator on the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures (2023-2030). Her work emphasizes strengths-based approaches, bridging research, policy, and practice through advisory roles at state and national levels.

Professor Shay has received major awards, including the UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award (2021), UQ Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Leadership (2024), National ACEL Leadership Award (2020), and a national award at the Education Publishing Awards Australia (2021) for her co-edited book Indigenous Education in Australia: Learning and Teaching for Deadly Futures (Routledge, 2021). She co-edited Strengths-based approaches in Indigenous education: research and practice (Routledge, 2025), contributing key chapters on theoretical lenses, introduction to strengths-based approaches, and codesign. With over 100 publications, notable works include 'Extending the yarning yarn: Collaborative Yarning Methodology for ethical Indigenist education research' (2021), 'Aboriginal identity in education settings: Privileging our stories...' (2017), and 'Alternative education engaging Indigenous young people: Flexi schooling in Queensland' (2015). She designed the School of Education's DEADLY Community program for mentoring early career researchers and supervises Indigenous higher degree research students, centring Indigenous strengths, knowledges, and aspirations to promote educational equity.