Dr Susan Carland is a sociologist of religion and the Deputy Director of Research, Impact, and Engagement for the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. She has won awards for both reserach and teaching. 

She has received a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship, a Churchill Fellowship, and is the Chief Investigator on an ARC Linkage project tracking Islamophobia and its impact on Australian Muslims' lives, partnering with the Special Envoy to Counter Islamophobia, the Scanlon Foundation, the Australian Multicultural Foundation, the Islamophobia Register Australia, Islamic College of Sport, and MCCA. She is currently conducting field research on Islam on the Cocos Islands.

Her first book, “Fighting Hislam: women, faith, and sexism”, was published by Melbourne University Publishing, and she has also published books with Oxford University Press and Brill.  She has written numerous academic publications on topics ranging from the religious practices of Australian Muslims during Ramadan, a historical analysis of the relationship between feminism and religion, Muslim women’s countering Islamophobia strategies, and gender and violent extremism.

She has spoken about her research and as an expert commentator to the UN in Geneva, Chatham House in London, on multiple Australian television, radio, print, and podcast outlets, and she currently sits on the boards of the Islamophobia Register Australia and the International Sociological Association Sociology of Religion committee. 

Susan hosted the multi award-winning podcast What Happens Next, and was host of the television show, Child Genius.  

In 2022, she was the Victorian state winner and national finalist in the Australian Financial Review's "Emerging Leader" in Higher Education award. She has been named on the "500 Most Influential Muslims in the World" list, and as a “Muslim Leader of Tomorrow” by the UN Alliance of Civilisations, as well as on The Age's “20 Most Influential Australian Female Voices”.

Research and supervision interests

Religion, Lived Religion, Muslims in Australia, feminism, sexism, discrimination, prejudice, social cohesion, Islam, Islamophobia.