ESAI is delighted to welcome two outstanding scholars in the field of education as keynote speakers to the ESAI Conference 2025.
They are Prof Tom O’Donoghue and Prof Clare Brooks.
Tom O’Donoghue, professor emeritus at The University of Western Australia, is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and of the Royal Historical Society (UK). He has also been an adjunct professor at The University of Adelaide, The Australian Catholic University, The Divine Word University (Madang), and UCD. His key research specialisations are in generic curriculum issues in relation to school and higher education sectors, and leadership in post-conflict and other challenging circumstances. That work, which has led to the publication of 40 books and numerous research papers in internationally refereed journals, is strongly informed by scholarship on the historical antecedents to contemporary policies and practices and by interpretative research approaches. He is past president of the Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society and is a member of a number of editorial boards, including that of The British Journal of Educational Studies, The Australian Journal of Teacher Education, History of Education (UK), and the Journal of Educational Administration and History (UK). Along with Prof Teresa O’Doherty and Prof Judith Harford he is general editor of the Emerald Studies in Teacher Preparation in National and Global Contexts, which so far has reached 15 volumes. Over his career he has worked extensively not only in Australia, but also in Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, and has conducted research there and in Rwanda, Cambodia, Serbia, Timor-Leste, and Chile.
Clare Brooks is a Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge. Her career began as a teacher of geography in East London, and her interest in geography influences her research which is current in spatial justice and the social role of teacher education. She is particularly interested in how policy in England is influencing access to teacher education for isolated communities. This follows on from a recent international research project on high-quality initial teacher education at scale, the results of which have been published by Routledge. She has also worked to redefine quality as a keyword in initial teacher education (as part of the Keywords in Teacher Education series with Bloomsbury). She developed her interest in the quality and development of teacher education following her experience as Pro-Director for Education, at the Institute of Education (IOE) University College London (UCL), as well as previous terms as Head of Department and Head of Initial Teacher Education, and as Director of the research Centre on Teacher and Early Years Education. She remains Honorary Professor at UCL’s Institute of Education, and at the University of Cumbria, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. In Cambridge’s Faculty of Education she leads the Education Doctorate programme.
