Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes

Associate Professor Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes is a Gomeroi woman with low vision, serving as Associate Professor in the Indigenous Studies Program, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. She also acts as Deputy Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion – Disability within the Faculty of Arts. Daniels-Mayes holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Aboriginal Education from the University of South Australia, completed between 2012 and 2017. Before entering academia, she dedicated over four decades to activism on disability, inequity, Aboriginality, and educational access. She collaborated with government and community agencies on human rights issues and amassed more than two decades of experience in developing, implementing, and evaluating Indigenous Strategies, Reconciliation Action Plans, and Disability Inclusion Access Plans for organizations such as the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney, the South Australian government, and Vision Australia. Previously, she served as a Lecturer in Aboriginal and Indigenous Education at the University of Sydney's School of Education and Social Work.

Her research expertise spans the sociology of racism, Critical Indigenous Studies, Critical Disability Studies, climate justice, and intersectionality, often applying an intersectional lens. As Lead Chief Investigator, she spearheads the BlakAbility project, exploring the lived experiences of Indigenous university staff and students with disability to create a culturally safe, disability-confident policy and practice framework. Daniels-Mayes is a Member of the Australian Research Council's College of Experts, Co-Chair of the Accessible Communications Technical Advisory Group, and Advisor to the National Disability Data Asset Committee. Notable publications include 'The silent violence of ableism in architecture' (2025, co-authored with I. Howe), 'Ethical Inclusion and Participation of People with Disability in Research: Problematising Vulnerability' (2024), 'Researching Indigenous people living with a disability: The urgent need for an intersectional and decolonising approach (BlakAbility)' (2023), and 'Strategic human rights-based policy reforms for making Australian universities equally accessible to students, staff, and faculty who are Indigenous people with disability' (2023, co-authored with P. Harpur and M.A. Stein). She has obtained major funding, such as $1.94 million ARC Discovery Indigenous grant in 2023 for improving life outcomes for Indigenous people with disability, $60,000 from the National Disability Research Partnership for BlakAbility in 2025, and the Rechnitz Fund from the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2024.

Professional Email: sheelagh.daniels-mayes@unimelb.edu.au