Professor Simone White serves as Dean of the School of Education at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where she leads the Design and Social Context department. With extensive leadership experience including past roles as Director of Professional Experience at Deakin University, Chair of Teacher Education at Monash, and Associate Dean (International and Engagement) at QUT, she brings significant expertise to her current position. She is a Past President of the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) and maintains an active research profile focused on teacher education policy and practice. Professor White's research interests center on teacher education policy, teacher learning, professional experience, and building university-school/community partnerships, with particular emphasis on preparing teachers for rural, regional, and remote contexts. Her work consistently addresses educational equity and community engagement, especially in underserved educational settings. She has developed innovative approaches to teacher professional learning, including a Casual Relief Teacher learning module that addresses an often-overlooked workforce area. Her recent publications demonstrate strong focus on teacher shortages, career change teachers, school-university partnerships, and rural education leadership. The research output reveals consistent engagement with policy analysis, partnership development, and practical solutions to contemporary challenges in teacher education. Her work bridges theoretical frameworks with practical applications, emphasizing social justice perspectives and community-centered approaches. Professor White has secured significant research funding, including ARC Discovery and Linkage projects such as Teacher Education for Rural and Regional Australia (TERRAnova) and Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE). She also led an Office of Learning and Teaching federal grant focused on supporting teachers to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents and caregivers. Currently, she serves as Chief Investigator on three ARC projects addressing career change teachers, hard-to-staff schools, and precariously employed teachers. As an educator, Professor White supports various teacher professional learning workshops and supervises research-based degrees. Her supervision interests include inclusive education policy impacts on students with disabilities. Through her collective work, she aims to connect research, policy, and practice while breaking down traditional borders between academics, policymakers, communities, and practitioners.
