Rate My Professor Saul Karnovsky

Dr. Saul Karnovsky is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia, and serves as Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Education (Secondary) undergraduate program. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Education from Curtin University in 2021, Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education from the University of Western Australia in 2004, and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Western Australia in 2003. In recognition of his doctoral research, he received the Western Australian Institute of Educational Research (WAIER) Award for Outstanding Postgraduate Thesis from Curtin University in 2021. Karnovsky's career includes prior roles such as Tutoring Program Coordinator at Curtin in 2011 and contributions to professional learning sessions for educators.

His research centers on teacher wellbeing, emotional experiences in teaching, professional ethics, work conditions, and teacher education, often employing post-structural theory, including Foucault's frameworks, to analyze emotional rules in pre-service teacher education and discourses of wellbeing. Key publications include the co-edited book Teachers' Emotional Experiences: Towards a New Emotional Discourse (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, with Nick Kelly); "How teacher wellbeing can be cruel: refusing discourses of wellbeing in an online Reddit forum" (British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2024, with Brad Gobby); "The teacher wellbeing turn: neuropolitics, education and the psy-complex" (Critical Studies in Education, 2025, with others); "A Foucauldian ethics of positivity in initial teacher education" (Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2022, with Brad Gobby and Peter O'Brien); "Moral disengagement and building resilience to violent extremism: An education intervention" (Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2014, with Anne Aly and Elisabeth Taylor, 287 citations); and "‘Beyond Bali’: a transformative education approach for developing community resilience to violent extremism" (Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 2017, with others). Karnovsky contributes to public discourse through media commentary on teacher burnout, stress, and retention, influencing discussions on educator welfare in Australia. He is also involved in outreach programs like The Curtin Coaches tutoring initiative (2015).