Dr Susan Carland is an academic, writer, and social commentator. She has a PhD from Monash University’s School of Political and Social Inquiry and is now the director of the Bachelor of Global Studies. Her research interests are feminism, sexism, discrimination, prejudice, social cohesion, Islam and Muslims in Australia. Susan was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for 2020, and an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) in 2020.
Susan’s first monograph Fighting Hislam was published by Melbourne University Publishing in 2017, and The Research Process (6th Edition), co-authored with Professor Gary Bouma, was published in 2016 by Oxford University Press. Her writing has appeared in local and international newspapers, academic journals, books, magazines, websites and anthologies. Susan is currently a columnist for Sunday Life in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Susan is the host of the podcast What Happens Next? and the SBS quiz/documentary series Child Genius, which follows the lives of gifted children and their families. She is a regular guest host on ABC Melbourne radio and a regular Friday panellist on ABC TV’s News Breakfast. Susan hosted the ABC Radio National series Assumptions, was a co-creator and presenter of SBS’s Salam Café and has appeared on the Agony series, Lateline, Q+A, The Project, 7:30, The Drum and Sunrise. She has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Dumbo Feather, The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sunday Life and 200 Women.
In 2018, Susan was named on Who magazine’s “Women Who Fight” list. Other accolades include the “Who’s Who of Australian Women” list, an InStyle “Woman of Style” and in Elle as one of 17 women “To Know and be Inspired by”. In 2012 she was named on the “20 Most Influential Australian Female Voices” list by The Age. Susan has spoken as an expert commentator to the UN in Geneva, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and has been named on the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World list and as a “Muslim Leader of Tomorrow” by the UN Alliance of Civilisations.
Susan is an ambassador for UNICEF Australia, sits on the Victorian Government’s AntiRacism Taskforce and is also a certified scuba diver.