About me

I am originally from Russia and moved to Australia in 2002. Since that time, I consider myself a proud North Queensland local and strive to give back to my adopted homeland. My personal motto is ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ (M.Gandhi). I strive to give my best to every task I undertake and lead by example. I am compassionate, easy going and friendly person, who works well with others. I have intrinsic motivation for continuous professional and personal development and take pride in my work.

My academic strengths include strong social science background, which allows me to adapt and transfer between different areas of research easily. I started my academic research in the field of social work, then transitioned to social marketing by the end of my Specialist of Social Work Degree. My PhD research centred around topics of community well-being (which is a multidimensional and cross-disciplinary concept) and tourism management. I was also involved in research on employment practices (research assistance in a transdisciplinary research project at the School of Business, JCU), as well as educational and labour market indicators (State of the Tropics project). And my latest research area is student success, and role and impact of student support services on it. Through involvement in research on such diverse variety of topics I developed very strong analytical skills and thorough knowledge of research methods utilised in different disciplines.