Larissa McLean Davies

Larissa McLean Davies leads large-scale Teacher Education research which mobilises partnerships with Government agencies, Education Departments, and not-for-profit organisations. Her mission is to convene interdisciplinary, translational research that is taken up by education systems internationally and has long-term impact on students’ learning and opportunities.

Committed to research and policy advocacy which conceives teacher education across the whole career-span, Larissa’s work addresses pressing issues regarding the way teachers’ knowledge is developed, tested and expanded in diverse institutional, geographical and social contexts. Since 2016, Larissa has been awarded over $6.5M in competitive funding (including substantive Category 1, 2 and 3 grants) to lead complex teams in major investigations into policies, systems, programs, and quality in teacher education. This work has produced more than 50 refereed publications in high-ranked international journals and field- defining books and has been acknowledged by various awards and commendations, including the University of Melbourne’s Engagement Award for Public Value (2021) and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education Award for Teaching and Learning with Impact on the Community (2021).

Larissa leads interdisciplinary scholarship about teacher knowledge and resourcing with a specific focus on literacy. She is the co-convenor of the Literary Education Lab, where she leads research which draws together researchers from the digital and environmental humanities, literary studies and education around core issues related to teacher professional learning in the context of justice and sustainability imperatives. Further, she led the largest ARC Discovery Grant for research in English Education to date for Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers (2016-2019); and from this is leading an international project working with Indigenous colleagues, in partnership with international and Australian not-for- profit organisations, to rethink questions of English teachers’ knowledge in settler societies.