Our Directors
Prof. Dany Adone, Co-Founder
Dany Adone is Professor and Chair of Applied English Linguistics at the University of Cologne. In Australia, she is also an Adjunct Professor associated with the College of Indigenous Futures, Arts & Society at CDU, a Visiting Professor at AIATSIS, a Visiting Scholar at the Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language and Culture Centre in Kununurra, and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, where she is also a member of the Sydney Indigenous Research Network and Sydney Centre for Language Research. She has lived in Arnhem Land/NT, Australia for over five years.
Prof. Beate Neumeier, Co-Founder
Beate Neumeier is Professor of English at the University of Cologne. Her research is in gender, performance, and postcolonial studies. She is the editor of the e-journal Gender Forum and published widely on women’s writing, Anglophone drama, contemporary British-Jewish literature, postcolonial literatures and Australian studies. From 2016 to 2023 she was president of the German Association for Australian Studies (GASt).
Affiliated Professors at the University of Cologne
Prof. Kate Rigby, Director of MESH
Professor Dr. Kate Rigby (Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities) is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Cologne, where she leads a research hub for Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities, and visiting scholar in the Research Centre for Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa University.
Team
Victoria Herche
Public Relations
Stefanie Affeldt
Social Media
Dr. Stefanie Affeldt holds a BA in Sociology from Macquarie University, an MA in Cultural and Social History from the University of Essex and obtained her doctorate in (Historical) Sociology from the University of Hamburg.
Thomas Batchelor
Thomas holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in linguistics from the University of Sydney and a doctorate from the University of Cologne, where he also worked as a Research Assistant in the English Department, with a dissertation on language change and contact reflected in the verb phrase of the variety of Australian Kriol spoken around Kununurra.
Leonie John
Australian Studies Online Project Coordinator
Leonie John joined the Centre team in February 2022. She is a literary studies postdoc and academic project manager for the online master programme “Australian Studies”, which will be offered at five North Rhine-Westphalian universities soon.
Previous Team Members
Christina Ringel
Christina Ringel has completed her PhD in the English Department/University of Cologne. Her dissertation describes the linguistic expression of the concept of possession in the endangered language Miriwoong (non-Pama-Nyungan, Jarrakan, Australia).
