Louise is the Director of Student Engagement in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. In this leadership capacity Louise focuses on the development of a positive and engaging academic and personal experience for faculty students. Her current priority areas in this role are student health and wellbeing, social inclusion and employabiity. To enable her to better inform her contribution to Student Engagement and Student Advising, Louise's resarch focuses on student inclusion in education. In particular, she is interested in ways in which universities can support and develop all students to reach their academic and personal potential.  Leveraging her previous educationally inclusive research in the areas of cultural inclusion for migrant and refugee youth,  Louise is now investigating pre-service teachers confidence and comfort about teaching LGBTIQ students and ways in which this can inform current and future teaching practice. Louise leverages her strong performing arts background as a means to drive socially inclusive educational practices and to include students more actively in their educational life.

Louise’s strong teacher practitioner focus and emphasis on teacher-led research, underpin all of her work. She uses action research to drive flexible and contemporary teaching practice, including the combination of a Blended Learning and Team teaching approach in the classroom. This combined approach has underpinned innovative changes to her work with her pre-service students and led to an international collaboration in the area of Online Live English Language teaching. The Blended Learning and Team Teaching approach is underpinned by pedagogy which re-considers the role of the teacher and student in the classroom. Louise has disseminated the findings of this research and innovative teacher practitioner work via various journal publications and national and international conference papers.

Louise also uses historical research methodology to inform and give perspective to all that she does. Her ground breaking research about Australian women music educators from 1890-1950 enabled a more complex understanding of her work in socially inclusive education and inclusive student advising. The early Australian women music educators faced prejudice and discrimination, as well as social exclusion, which aligns and relfects the types of experiences students from minority groups and diverse backgrounds can experience today.