Professor Lynette Riley, AO, a Wiradjuri & Gamilaroi woman from Dubbo and Moree, working in the Sydney School of Education & Social Work, Chair, for Aboriginal Education and Indigenous Studies, at The University of Sydney. Profile: https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/lynette.riley.html

Lynette works within the University of Sydney to co-ordinate the delivery of mandatory and elective Aboriginal Education units, in the Sydney School of Education & Social Work; and Indigenous Studies Major within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Lynette has also been instrumental in developing the Kinship Online Module: https://sydney.edu.au/about-us/vision-and-values/our-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-community/kinship-module.html which is based on a face-to-face presentation she created in 1988. The Kinship Online Module was launched in 2014, and has been tracked at having well over 500,000 people and organisations, access the site.

Lynette trained as an infants/primary teacher. She has been a classroom teacher; an Aboriginal Education consultant; worked in TAFE; State Manager for Aboriginal Education; and an academic. Her career focus is improving educational delivery for Aboriginal students and ensuring non-Indigenous students gain accurate information about Aboriginal people’s their histories and cultures. Lynette’s PhD was conferred in 2017, looking at ‘Conditions of Academic Success for Aboriginal Students in Schools’. Her career focus has been in improving educational delivery for Aboriginal students and educating the wider public about Aboriginal people, and to find solutions creating sustainable change for Aboriginal programs, entwining understandings, knowledge of cultural education and competence.

Lynette has been involved in numerous research projects and in writing numerous chapters and journal articles, her most recent is a series of 7 ‘Wiradjuri Workbooks’ written with her sister Diane Riley-McNaboe.

Lynette’s key research focuses are concerning race and racism, Community-Led Research approaches, and achieving sound academic outcomes for Indigenous students. Lynette is also an exhibited artist in producing her cultural practice of Kangroo Skin Cloaks with traditional symbols and designs.