Dr. Santos is a lecturer at the Monash Intercultural Lab, where he explores how individuals develop intercultural capabilities in interpersonal and professional contexts. His current research addresses issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in sporting communities and cultures. His research investigates how difference is approached and contested in sporting communities, and what enablers can support and sustain more inclusive sporting cultures.

Dr Santos, originally from Brazil, has a background in language education and taught English as an additional language/foreign language, and English for academic purposes for over a decade in language schools. His journey led him to Australia in 2012, where he pursued a PhD in Education, focusing on the digital practices and culturally shaped aspirations of young Brazilians. 

Dr Santos’ research interests are situated within Cultural Studies, Sociology of Sport, and Intercultural Studies. His research addresses how difference is socially constructed and enacted across institutional, organisational, and community contexts. His current research interests explore:

• Sporting cultures and issues of equity, diversity and inclusion

Dr Santos is currently looking at racism within the Australian Football League (AFL), with a particular emphasis on how fractures and tensions across in the wider Australian society reverberate through sports. He is also interested in the changing demographic shifts in cricket, driven by global migration patterns, and how it contests ‘sanctioned’ narratives of what sporting codes mean to different social groups. He currently leads a project on the changing nature of cricket cultures in Australia as they are shaped by South Asian migration.

• The scholarship of teaching and learning, interculturality and student voices

As a passionate educator, Dr Santos’ is interested in how interculturality can enable educators to rethink pedagogical practices in higher education, and enable students’ diverse voices to shape meaningful learning experiences. Focusing on innovations in teaching learning, such as virtual mobility, intercultural dialogue, intercultural teamwork and collaboration, Dr Santos explores the changing nature of the scholarship of teaching learning ensuring it addresses the diversity of students’ identities and needs.

• Professional learning, diverse workplaces and intercultural capabilities

Dr Santos is interested in exploring the conditions that enable inclusive workplaces and leadership practices, with a strong emphasis on the intercultural capabilities that employees, leaders, and graduates need to develop to enable them to address key global challenges that shape the future of work and communities of which they are part. His research focuses on sustainable professional learning, that supports organisational change and individuals’ sense of belonging, in the context of superdiverse communities.

I contribute to the teaching of the Monash Intercultural Lab's postgraduate units on intercultural competence.

APG5470 - Managing Multicultural Teams

APG5471 - Leadership in Intercultural Environments

These units, co-designed and co-coordinated with Dr Nadine Normand-Marconnet, are part of the Professional Enhancement Program allowing students to develop their intercultural capabilities for globalised and super-diverse workplace contexts.