Open Fora: WiSE

Pearl Chung

Pearl Chung is currently an B.Comms (Dean’s Scholars) student, with a background in PR and telecommunications.



She is the operations and communications assistant at Launch Pad, Western Sydney University’s Technology Business Incubator, with focuses on on AI, machine learning, VR/AR, additive manufacturing and Industry 4.0.



Beyond University, Pearl is passionate about social justice, mental wellbeing, music and enjoying food.

Lucy Nicholas

Director, Sexualities and Genders Research

Associate Professor Lucy Nicholas (they/them) is director of Genders and Sexualities Research at WSU. They are dedicated to diversity and inclusion outcomes and have significant content and conceptual expertise in gender and sexual diversity, whiteness, and masculinity. Their research skills include research design; research ethics; quantitative and qualitative methods; data analysis; best-practice; diversity and inclusion training and public speaking on gender diversity beyond equity. Email: l.nicholas@westernsydney.edu.au

Emilee Gilbert

Associate Professor

Chair School of Psychology Equity & Diversity

Dr Emilee Gilbert is a feminist sociologist and Associate Professor in the School of Psychology. She is an expert in qualitative research methods, and the application of post-structural feminist theory to the analysis of issues surrounding gender, health and sexuality. Her research interests are gender equity, mothering, and women's negotiation of paid and unpaid work. Emilee is an elected member of the International Academy of Sex Research, and Chair Equity and Diversity (SoP). Emilee’s key Industry partners, include the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), The NSW Treasury, The Gidgit Foundation, Parent’s at Work (PAW), and Rainbow Families. Some of her recent publications include Negotiating co-existing subjectivities: the new maternal self in the academy and Gender equality mainstreaming and the Australian academy: paradoxical effects?

Heimy Molina

Engineering society

Heimy Molina is a final year Engineering Honours student at Western Sydney University. She is currently specialising in Civil engineering, with a sub-major in structures. Throughout her study, she has received the Dean’s Merit List award consistently, is a finalist for the 2022 Emerging Designer Award, and bagged the Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship for Outstanding Academic performance in 2020. 

She is currently also a Student Ambassador for Engineers Australia, a Women's Representative of the university's Engineers Society, and has been featured in the famous construction podcast of Elinor Moshe's "Constructing You" to celebrate her excellence in the field.

Heimy is an active advocate of women in STEM as she gets invited to talk in schools about celebrating the presence of women in the STEM fields. Aside from this, she is currently working as an Engineering Cadet at QMC Group — a construction company that works for the Sydney City Council.

Hollie Hammond

Founding executive member of Student parent union

Hollie Hammond completed her Honours thesis on motherhood and precarious employment within academia in 2021. She has worked on a number of projects in the domain of institutional gender equity, including an exploration of motherhood, identity, and academic career cycles, most recently contributing to a white paper on menstrual equity in Australia. She also co-founded Western Sydney University's first Student Parent Union in an effort to provide a sense of community and advocacy to student parents. Hollie remained active in various leadership positions during her undergraduate degree, including being among the first students included on the Vice Chancellor's Gender Equity Committee, and the ancillary Parents and Carer's Working Party. Hollie received the University Medal upon graduating from her B. Psychology (Hons) course and will be returning to Western Sydney University as a PhD candidate in September, undertaking a thesis entitled Being and Becoming a Mother: A Reconciliation of Post-structural Feminist and Psychoanalytic Thought.

Linda Watson

Director HR Partnerships, Workplace Relations and Change