SILC Founder, Clare Hall (PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts, Monash University, Australia. Her interdisciplinary practice-based research bridges boundaries between the arts, education, and sociology, with her key contribution to date in music and masculinity. She is the Cofounder/leader of the Decolonising and Indigenising Music Education group (International Society of Music Education) and is part of a major ARC funded project: Diversifying Music in Australia: Gender Equity in Jazz and Improvisation. Her scholarly publications include sole author, Masculinity, Class and Music Education (Palgrave, 2018), co-editor of Sociological Thinking in Music Education: International Intersections (OUP, 2021), and Decolonising and Indigenising Music Education (Routledge, forthcoming 2024).

Rachael Dwyer (PhD) Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy at University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. She is an experienced educator and researcher concerned with ensuring that all students have opportunities to participate in quality music and arts education as part of their schooling. Rachael’s teaching experience has extended across P-12 music classrooms, as well as over a decade of experience as a teacher educator. Rachael's integrated research, advocacy and teaching work has focused on the ways in which teachers’ values and beliefs are effectively leveraged for social change through arts-based research methods and pedagogies. Arts education and arts-based methods allow collaborative, applied work drawing on rich and longitudinal relationships with participants, communities and other stakeholders.

Thomas Fienberg (PhD) is a lecturer in music education and Acting Associate Dean Indigenous Strategy and Services at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. His teaching and research interests include Indigenizing and decolonizing music education, industry and community collaboration in arts-based learning, culturally relevant pedagogy, and First Nations research methods. Thomas worked previously as a secondary teacher in NSW Government schools and was nominated for the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Music Teacher Award in 2020. His research has been published in a variety of academic books and journals, including Research Studies in Music Education, Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, and the Australian Journal of Music Education.

Gillian Howell (PhD) is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne, Australia. Gillian Howell's award-winning interdisciplinary research and creative practice advance our understanding of the contributions of music-making and voice to community wellbeing and social justice, with a particular interest in peacebuilding, conciliation, and dialogue. At the University of Melbourne she is leading a portfolio of research investigating: the role(s) of music in community dialogue processes; the varieties of peace that music-making fosters; collaborative songwriting as a methodology for understanding voice and power among war-affected adolescents; and the practices of musician-peacebuilders around the world.

Candace Kruger (PhD) is a Yugambeh yarrabilginngunn (song woman) and proud Kombumerri (Gold Coast) and Ngugi (Moreton Island) Aboriginal woman and Yugembeh Elder. She is Lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University specialising in Indigenous Knowledges and Education. Her work in initial teacher education draws on her 27 years experience teaching in schools. She is an author, musician, composer, as well as educator, and is the founder and director of the Yugambeh Youth Choir. Candace’s research interests include practice-based investigations in the fields of Indigenous musicology, Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous education. Candace’s co-composed piece ‘Morning Star and Evening Star’ is one example of this work and was the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) Online Orchestra, National 2021 music piece.

Aron Stevens is a proud Aboriginal man from Wiradjuri Country at Junee. He is Lecturer in Education and doctoral candidate at Southern Cross University, Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Teaching and a Bachelor of Health and Physical Education from The University of Newcastle. He has professional experience as a school principal and is currently investigating approaches to supporting Indigenous language teaching and learning through singing in New South Wales schools.