Always approachable and easy to talk to.
Encourages students to think critically.
Encourages students to think independently.
Inspires students to love their studies.
Dr. Michelle Sydes serves as Senior Lecturer in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, a position she has held since January 2022. She is a member of the Griffith Criminology Institute and maintains an ORCID identifier of 0000-0001-9241-0004. Sydes earned her PhD from the University of Queensland in 2017, focusing on policing partnerships, and received the UQ Dean's Award for Outstanding Higher Degree by Research Thesis for this work. Prior to Griffith, she conducted research at the University of Queensland Institute for Social Science Research and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security, contributing to projects such as policing interventions for interpersonal violence.
Her academic interests encompass applied corrections, research synthesis, policing, and neighbourhood effects on crime. Sydes has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, including the book 'Partnerships in Policing: How Third Parties Help Police to Reduce Crime and Disorder' (Cambridge University Press, 2025, with Janet Ransley, Lorraine Mazerolle, and Kevin Petersen); 'Criminal justice interventions for preventing radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism: An evidence and gap map' (2023); 'Body-worn camera activation in prisons: understanding correctional officer discretion' (2024, with Shannon Dodd, Emma Antrobus, and others); 'PROTOCOL: Correlates and Antecedents of Hate Crime: A Systematic Review of Place-Level Risk and Protective Factors' (2025, with Kathryn Benier and Angela Higginson); 'Predicting and screening out police wrongdoing' (2024, with Louise Porter, Janet Ransley, and James McEwan); and 'Sentencing Practices for Sexual Assault and Rape Offences' (2024, with Lacey Schaefer). These works have accumulated over 217 citations on ResearchGate. Sydes has obtained research grants from the Australian Institute of Criminology, including funding for studies on poly-victimisation and mental health across female offending pathways (with Lorana Bartels and Caitlin Davey) and parole waivers (with Shannon Dodd and Lorana Bartels). She holds the position of Secretary for the Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology. In her teaching role, Sydes convenes courses and collaborates with teams to deliver statistics training tailored for criminology students at Griffith University.
