INSIGHT EXCHANGE - Key Persons
Ghena is a Associate Professor with over 20 years experience in researching, teaching and writing in the areas of public law, multiculturalism, family law and family violence. She is also a registered Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner.
Ghena is a regular commentator on the Australian Muslim community and her research has focused on Muslim Women in the family law context. She has authored several books and peer reviewed journal articles including Muslim Women and Agency in the Australian Context (2021). Her research has always sought to centre lived experience as a key part of her research methodology.
She has always had a strong focus on women's issues, particularly Australian Muslim women.
Ghena has always been a passionate advocate for women's rights and has explored the experience of family violence in many aspects of her work. Her philosophy is that those with a voice must hold the space for others - understanding each other's narrative can only happen when we allow everyone to have a chance to be heard.
Dr Leticia Funston (she/her) currently lives and works on the stolen and unceded lands of the Bidjigal peoples of Eora Nation.
Leticia is a qualified social worker and researcher who is committed to centring the lived expertise of victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence. Leticia is also passionate about decolonisation and anti-racism.
Leticia completed her PhD degree under the supervision of Dr Lesley Laing and Dr Margot Rawsthorne with the Education and Social Work Faculty at Sydney University. Leticia's thesis ‘In the Business of Trauma: An intersectional-materialist feminist analysis of ‘trauma informed' women's refuges and crisis accommodation services in Sydney and Vancouver (2019)', considers the capacity for human services to respond to gendered violence and housing injustice in the context of settler-colonialism and neoliberalism.
Leticia leads the Insight Exchange Be a Participant opportunity and published Voices of Insight. Leticia's work focuses on how lived experience insights can inform ecosystem responses across sectors and industries. Leticia is also involved in the co-facilitating of cross-sector, Hotels Lab and Insight Exchange Creating Conversations.
Tania has a Master's Degree in Family Therapy, is Certified in Response-Based Practice, and has a Doctoral Degree in Women and Gender Studies focused on sexualised violence.
Tania has 13 years of international experience working with individuals and couples focusing on violence and abuse. She has a private practice in México. Her work contrasts academic notions that fail to explore and understand personal, relational, and contextual meanings and practices of sex and sexuality.
Tania's work focuses on how people, institutions, groups, and communities, are social responders and that their responses are crucial for the ongoing creation of social and personal safety and dignity.
Her academic research centers on the exploration of resistance, sexuality, and bodily experiences as intentional ethical responses for safety and dignity. She is the founder of ECOS: Prácticas-Basadas-en-la-Respuesta uplifting responses in Mexican and Latin American contexts.
Job Titles:
- Illustrator
- Illustrator and Animator
Illustrator and Animator Guy Downes (and team) for extending the rights in perpetuity (as a form of donation) for work developed in the Insight Exchange animations and illustrations.
Job Titles:
- Artist With
- Collaborating Artist & Libraries Lab
- Collaborating Artist ( Photo Media ) ( 2020 - Current )
Louise is a visual artist with photo-media base. Her multidisciplinary approach spans photo-media, projection, video art, public, installation and curation. Much of her practice draws inspiration from environmental and humanitarian issues, and her interest in the aesthetics of memory.
Louise is widely published and exhibited. She photographs for the state libraries of NSW, WA and the National Library of Australia. Louise has more than 30 national and international awards to her name.
Louise complements her photographic works with the State Library of NSW in the oral history discipline. The UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee has collected some of her oral histories as a documentary heritage to the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. Explore Louise Whelan's Portfolio at https://australiansall.photoshelter.com/about
Since September 2020, Louise has been a collaborating artist with Insight Exchange and an Associate listening and responding to victim-survivors who are silent or silenced by violence and abuse. Explore the evolving collections in the Arts Lab including ‘Voices of Insight', ‘No Hidden Door,' ‘Strangulation', ‘Working with distressing content' and more.
In FY24/25 Louise's work continues to support understanding of and responses to violence and abuse through the Arts. In particular, through the inception and development of the Libraries Lab and how we share the Voices of Insight Collection as a mobile gallery, and as an Artist in residence at Edie's Place.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the NSW Domestic
Sal has worked in strategy and development roles in human services in London and Sydney. With colleagues and collaborators, she has been involved in the initial conception and ongoing evolution of Insight Exchange.
Sal is a member of the NSW Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault Council. She is known for her strategic and purposeful approach to creating clarity and working together - connecting people to people, people to ideas, and ideas to ideas.