Dr Sarah Casey (preferred pronouns she/her) instigated and leads all of the projects discussed on this website.
Sarah holds a PhD from Griffith University. She is the co-author of Media and Society (6th Edition), and Hashtag Feminisms: Australian media feminists, activism, and digital campaigns.
Sarah was inspired to start working on rural projects as she comes from a fifth generation Queensland farming family, and admires the strength of the people she has known all her life, but she has seen many people in the bush almost reach breaking point due to increasing challenges to life on the land. As such, Sarah is passionate about helping people to create off-farm income sources, and enabling them to stay in the regional, remote, and rural communities that they love.
Prior to working in academia, Sarah worked in Japan and then spent more than a decade working for large financial organisations, as well as in communication, in Australia and the UK. Sarah is the President of the Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Association, the national academic peak body for women’s and gender studies research. Her work about rural life has featured in academic publications, national media such as ABC Country Hour, as well as internationally in the Chicago Quarterly Review. In 2022, Sarah's piece (with Juliet Watson) on Neighbours was included in The Conversation's yearbook.
Sarah publishes in academic journals, and one of the articles she led about some of the works in this project: 'Stories of country women: Advancing feminist intersectionality for climate change adaptation in Australia' in top ranking journal - Sociologica Ruralis - won the 2024 'Most Distinguished Paper' prize (alongside coauthors Associate Professor Gail Crimmins, Dr Joanna McIntyre, and Professor Sandy O'Sullivan)
Phone: +61 7 5456 3544
Email: scasey3@usc.edu.au
Associate Professor Gail Crimmins (preferred pronouns she/her) works in the School of Business and Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, and is the Chair of the University's Academic Board.
Gail is committed to supporting people and communities in regional and rural Australia who are impacted by severe weather events, and is passionate about gender equity. She worked on the Real Stories of Country Women project, a project designed to learn and share the coping strategies of women living in drought impacted areas of the Surat, Roma and Charleville regions of South West Queensland The project supported the development of a series of mini-documentaries which give voice to women in rural Australia. She most recently worked alongside Dr Sarah Casey and colleagues at USC on Real Rural Digital Solutions designed to assist people in St George and Dirranbandi to develop or enhance their digital skills. With Sarah, Gail has worked on each iteration of the Stories of Country Women projects.
Phone: +61 7 5456 5954
Email: GCrimmin@usc.edu.au