Organising Committee

Bronwyn Green

Bronwyn Green has been a teacher of the deaf for 30 years and is the Manager of Deaf/Hard of Hearing Services for the Queensland Department of Education. Bronwyn leads a state-wide team of Project Officers and Regional Auslan Coaches to support the educational needs of Deaf and hard of hearing students across the state.

Bronwyn is the current president of the Qld Branch of the Australian Association of Teachers of the Deaf, a member of the National Executive of this organisation and the Co-Chair for the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED) being held in Brisbane in July, 2021.

Greg Leigh

Professor Greg Leigh is Director of NextSense Institute in Sydney and conjointly Professor of Education in the School of Education at Macquarie University. He holds degrees in Special Education from Griffith University; a Master of Science (Speech and Hearing) degree from Washington University; and a PhD in Psychology and Special Education from Monash University. He is a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators and in 2014 he was invested as an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO).
Professor Leigh held a variety of positions in the education of deaf and hard of hearing children before entering academia. He was co-ordinator of the program in education of the deaf at Deakin University from 1987 until 1994 when he assumed the first of several positions in research and professional education at Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in Sydney (now NextSense). He has been an Honorary Visiting Fellow at Griffith University and an International Visiting Scholar at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (Rochester Institute of Technology), New York.
Professor Leigh is active in research and has published widely on aspects of the development and education of deaf children and related areas—particularly early identification and intervention. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education (USA) and Phonetics and Speech Sciences. He has served on numerous Australian Government consultative committees including National Neonatal Hearing Screening Working Party. Since 2005 he has been Chair of the Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening Committee and he is a Board Director of Deafness Foundation, Australia. He is a former National President of the Education Commission for the World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf and is currently Co-chair of the International Steering Committee of the International Congress on Education of the Deaf (ICED).

Jenny Wilson
Joy MacDougall

Joy has had a long career spanning decades of enormous change in the field of deaf education in Queensland. She taught first at the Queensland School for the Deaf, a large residential school in Brisbane and since then has worked as an itinerant support teacher in metropolitan and rural areas and in a centre for young deaf and hard of hearing children. She currently works for the Department of Education, Disability and Inclusion Branch, in an administrative role. She has supported teachers of the deaf through training, professional development and mentoring. As an active member of the Australian Association of Teacher of the Deaf, she has been involved in organising workshops, a national conference and now ICED as the culminating challenge.

Trudy Smith

Trudy Smith
Diploma of Jazz: Saxophone (Qld Conservatorium of Music), Bachelor of Special Education: Hearing (Griffith University), Master of Education: Language and Literacy (Deakin University), PhD Candidate (Deakin University), Listening and Spoken Language Specialist Certified Auditory Verbal Therapist

Biography
Trudy is the Manager of Continuing Professional Education at the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) Renwick Centre.

She has been a Teacher of the Deaf for over 20 years and has worked in education settings in Queensland and New South Wales as a classroom teacher, itinerant support teacher and as the Statewide Education Advisor.

She worked as an AV Therapist at the Hear and Say Centre in Brisbane and as a Rehabilitation Manager for MED-EL, providing coaching and guiding for therapists, teachers and parents supporting students with hearing loss in over 20 countries around the world.

Trudy is the current state and national president of the National Association of Australian Teachers of the Deaf (NAATD).

Claire Loades

Claire Loades
Diploma of Teaching, Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Special Education, Masters of Arts Applied Linguistic

Biography
A life member of Australian Association Teachers of the Deaf South Australian Branch, having held many different positions on the committee of many years. Claire is currently one of the SA reps on the National Committee for AATD holding the position of Minutes Secretary. She is also the immediate past president of the national committee.  Claire is a recipient of the Des Power Teacher of the Deaf Award for Exemplary Service to the Education of Deaf Children from NAATD

Claire has worked as an Itinerant Teacher and Leader in the field of Deaf Education in South Australia in both metropolitan and country locations. She has an interest in bilingual education for Deaf students and the impact of otitis media and conductive hearing loss on Aboriginal students.

Claire currently works the principal of a mainstream school that has a Intensive England Language Program for students newly arrived in Australia for whom English is a second language.