Rate My Professor Mel Gray

Emeritus Professor Mel Gray serves in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where she held the Chair of Social Work from 1999 to 2018. Prior to academia, she practiced social work for 15 years in South Africa. Gray earned her PhD on the relationship between social work, ethics, and politics, along with a Master of Social Science, Bachelor of Social Science (Honours), and Bachelor of Social Science from the University of Natal. In South Africa, she was Professor and Head of the Department of Social Work at the University of KwaZulu-Natal from 1994 to 1999, and Project Leader for the Crime Reduction in Schools Project. Upon moving to Australia in 1999, she became Chair of Social Work at Newcastle, heading the Department in 2001, serving as Research Professor in the Research Institute for Social Inclusion and Wellbeing from 2008 to 2009, and building the social work research team to achieve ERA 5 rating in 2012 and ERA 4 in 2015. She supervised 25 doctoral students over 20 years, attracting international candidates, and secured two ARC Discovery grants in 2008 for research on evidence-based practice.

Gray's research interests include ethics, evidence-based practice, spirituality, Indigenous social work, international social work, social policy, social work education and practice, an indigenised approach focusing on local conditions, rural social work, environmental social work, moral and political philosophy, feminism, post-colonialism, and social development in Africa. Key publications encompass Decolonizing Social Work (2013), The Handbook of Social Work and Social Development in Africa (Routledge, 2016/2017), Environmental Social Work (2013), Evidence-Based Social Work: A Critical Stance (2009), The Sage Handbook of Social Work (2012), Indigenous Social Work around the World: Towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice (2008/2010), The New Politics of Social Work (2013), and Social Work Theories and Methods (2013). She held editorial positions as Joint Editor of Australian Social Work (2005-2008), Associate Editor of International Journal of Social Welfare (from 2004), and on boards of Sage Journal of Social Work and others. Awards include the Vice-Chancellor's Excellence in Supervision Award (2009), Eileen Younghusband Lecture Award (2018), Choice Outstanding Academic Title for Decolonizing Social Work (2014), and recognition as one of the top 10 social work researchers worldwide (2022). She served on the Board of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (1996-2000). Gray pioneered culturally-relevant social work, influencing debates on indigenisation and decolonisation globally.