Leading Together
Dialogues on Sustainability in India & Australia
A transnational, inter-disciplinary and intersectional discourse on topics relating to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Leading Together is a collaboration between undergraduate students at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne and undergraduate students at four institutions across India comprising Tetso College in Nagaland, Stella Maris College in Chennai (affiliated with the University of Madras), Savitribai Phule Pune University in Pune and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati Campus. This is a place for students in India and Australia to connect with each other and discuss the role of young people and leadership across health, technology, education and sustainability.
Information about the 2023 conference will be available on this page later in the year.
Learn more about our past conferences
Conveners
A/Prof Kate MacNeill
Kate MacNeill is the Associate Dean Education and Students in the Faculty of Arts. Her PhD is in Art History and she has been teaching in the Arts and Cultural Management program. A frequent visitor to India in recent years, she co-convened the Women and Leadership Symposium at Stella Maris College Chennai in 2019. Kate is super excited about this project, and looking forward to the opportunity to engage more with the amazing students she has met on these visits.
Dr. Dolly Kikon
Dr. Dolly Kikon is the Deputy Associate Dean (India Strategy) in the Faculty of Arts, and the Senior Research Advisor (SRA-Governance) at the Australia India Institute (Melbourne). She holds a PhD in Anthropology and teaches Anthropology and Development Studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences. Along with Associate Dean Associate Professor Kate MacNeill Dr. Kikon participated at the Women and Leadership Symposium at Stella Maris College in 2019. The vibrant conversations and reflections inspired us to envision the 2021 Leading Together event. It has been a joy to plan and coordinate this event, and I am looking forward to engaging and be inspired by the participants.
Kirsty McKellar
Kirsty McKellar has been the Program Co-ordinator of the Leading Together Dialogues since 2021. Her Master’s at the University of Melbourne was in Development Studies. As part of her studies, she wrote a dissertation on floods in Bihar, India, looking specifically at how they are envisaged, prepared for and responded to by communities, policy makers and policy implementers. In 2019, she worked with a humanitarian organisation RedR India on their post-flood disaster restoration and recovery project in Maharashtra. In 2022 she organised an art auction fundraiser to support two civil society groups fighting gender-based violence in Dimapur, Nagaland. In 2023, alongside her role in Leading Together, she is working as the co-ordinator of another University of Melbourne initiative around Indigenous Naga repatriation.
Yasmeen Hassan
Yasmeen Hassan is the Project Coordinator for the Arts Teaching Innovation at the University of Melbourne. She supports pedagogical projects delivered by academics under the Education and Students portfolio in the Faculty of Arts. Yasmeen holds a Master of Public Health specialising in evaluation, which involved a research project evaluating the impact of state-collected community health and wellbeing data on public health priorities and polices at a local government level. Yasmeen is delighted to be working on this project and is looking forward to the rich dialogue and important co-creation of knowledge between colleagues in India and Australia.
Dr. Wajeehah Aayeshah
Dr. Wajeehah Aayeshah is a Lecturer in Curriculum Design (ATI). She explores pedagogical knowledge and practices, co-creates innovative learning and teaching spaces, and activates student voice and agency. Wajeehah is passionate about identifying and grooming diverse forms of leadership capabilities through creative narratives. She likes drinking tea and collecting lived stories.
Dr. Sr. Rosy Joseph
Dr. Sr. Rosy Joseph is fmm Principal, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics at Stella Maris College (Autonomous), Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, with an erudite service of 21 years. As a dynamic leader, she works in alliance with the entire College community to build on its tradition of excellence in education. She has served in various capacities and focuses on student-centric, holistic development in all spheres.
Dr. Lakshmi Priya Daniel
Dr. Lakshmi Priya Daniel is an artist, academician and currently the IQAC Coordinator of Stella Maris College (Autonomous), Chennai, India, joining the Department of Fine Arts as faculty in 1996. She served as Dean of Student Affairs in College from June 2014 – 2017. As part of the UBCHEA Fellowship in 2018-19, Lakshmi Priya attended a ‘Leadership Development Program’ at Harvard University and a two-month Fellowship placement at the University of Melbourne. She has a wide range of interests including a love of reading mytho fiction and travelling to offbeat locations.
Dr. A. Punitha
Dr. A. Punitha is an Associate Professor teaching in the Department Of Economics, Stella Maris College (Autonomous). She was the Chief Coordinator of the Functional Literacy Programme, where she actively worked with women from rural districts for over a decade, equipping them with the capacity to organically read and engage with numbers, participate in democratic processes and take charge of their own lives independently. She has contributed towards the forming of Self-Help Groups which aid in promoting financial freedom and entrepreneurship within their communities. As the Director of the Womens’ Studies Centre, she is looking forward to building conversations as well as creating spaces for students to transgress gender boundaries and look at analysing socio-cultural realities to pave the path towards an equal future.
Dr. Hewasa L. Khing
Dr. Hewasa L. Khing is the Principal of Tetso College, Dimapur, Nagaland. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and has been teaching in the English Honours programme. She is currently monitoring a research project titled Challenges under Cyberspace: The Explanatory Study of the Ramifications of Cyber Crimes for Women in Nagaland, sponsored by the National Commission for Women, New Delhi. Her research interests include culture and identity, cultural memory and representation, leadership and innovation in the education sector.
Dr. Tatongkala
Dr. Tatongala is the Head of the Department of History at Tetso College, Dimapur, Nagaland. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies, and has also worked as a Technical Restorer in the National Gallery of Modern Arts, New Delhi. Her areas of interest and research includes festival studies, heritage studies, museology, culture, and identity.
Anjan K. Behera
Anjan K. Behera is the Assistant Dean of the School of English & Political Studies at Tetso College, Nagaland. As part of his PhD studies, he is studying the representation of men in diaspora novels by Indian women. Anjan has also worked as a freelance translator for All India Radio, Kohima. His areas of interest and research include diaspora fiction, televisual culture, gender studies, and postcolonial studies.
Dr. Rajdeep Singha
Dr. Rajdeep Singha is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Labour Studies & Social Protection at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati Campus. He obtained a PhD in Economics from the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru. He is co-editor of Employment and Labour Market in Northeast India: Interrogating Structural Changes (Routledge, 2018), Work, Institutions and Sustainable Livelihood: Issues and Challenges of Transformation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited books. His areas of research and teaching interest include development economics, poverty, agrarian studies, industrial economics and labour economics. He was engaged in various research projects on issues related to poverty, employment, inequality and labour supported by United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP), International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Oxfam Germany (ODE), Assam Rural Infrastructure and Agricultural Services Society (ARIAS Society) under Govt. of Assam, ONGC, New Delhi, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO), ActionAid etc.
Shivani Singh
Shivani Singh is a scholar of History with specialization in Modern Indian History. Her research interests are women’s educational history which she has been developing through researching in women’s life narratives and career histories. Her research work so far has been taken on an interdisciplinary character which has given her an ample scope to explore women/ gender studies as well. Oral history seems to her a research area with great potential and opportunities. A new thrust area which she is developing currently is History of Science and Technology in Indian context: a)
historical and philosophical aspect, b) dynamics of socio-economic and political developments linked to it, and c) Indian and World context. Currently, she is occupied as an Assistant Professor for the Liberal Arts course in the Interdisciplinary School of Science, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. She is an artist/ painter in different traditional Indian art forms.
