People and Partners

CEMA has two main aspirations: to provide services to the education community, business world, and the tertiary sector, and to become a self-funded centre.

CEMA is committed to:

• Building depth of expertise in educational assessment and reporting
• Working with and through representatives of the teaching profession
• Prioritising the needs and perspectives of teachers and school leaders in meeting students’ needs and in addressing patterns of educational attainment and disadvantage 
• Working with the profession to help assure the veracity and impartiality of public commentary on assessment and reporting.

Our team

Professor Jim Tognolini, Founding Director

Associate Professor Sofia Kesidou

Dr Graham Hendry, Senior Lecturer

Dr Chris Freeman, Casual Academic

Adjunct Professor Tom Alegounarias, Casual Academic

Kathleen Walker, Executive Assistant

The CEMA Assessment Advisory Committee represents the interests of the centre’s partners and consists of representatives from educational sectors, unions, agencies, and the University.  The Advisory Committee assures the appropriateness of CEMA planning, business model and general activity. It advises on the perspectives and priorities of these groups and identifies opportunities for CEMA to achieve its commitments through its general activities, projects and partnerships.

CEMA Assessment Advisory Committee members

• Tom Alegounarias, Chair
• Danielle Cronin, Director of Education Policy, Catholic Schools NSW
• Patrick Devery, Professional Officer, Independent Education Union NSW & ACT
• Hayley Fisher, Academic Director, Post Bachelor and Continuing Education, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Education
• Amber Flohm, Senior Vice President, NSW Teachers Federation
• Liz Kenna, Manager Strategic Partnerships and Engagement, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
• Christine Grice, Lecturer, Educational Leadership
• Lucy Lu, Senior Manager, Analytics and Strategic Projects, Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO)
• David Oosthuizen, Finance Director, Business, Arts, Law, Conservatorium
• Tiffany Roos, Director of Evidence Institute, Association of Independent Schools
• Jacky Hodges, Executive Director, Schools Policy and Evidence (GAICD), NSW Department of Education
• Lyn Kirkby, Executive Director, School and Teaching Standards, NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA)
• Carol Taylor, Representative of CEMA honoraries
• Jim Tognolini, Director of CEMA

Honorary Professors

• Professor David Andrich, Chapple Professor, UWA
• Professor Paul Richardson

Adjunct Professor

• Tom Alegounarias

Honorary Associate Professor

• Dean Dudley

Honorary Senior Lecturer

• Judith Gliddon

Adjunct Senior Lecturer

• Carol Taylor, Educational Consultant
• Lucy Lu, Centre for Education Statistics & Evaluation, NSW Department of Education

Honorary Research Fellows

• Bruce Mowbray, Director, Denstat Solutions
• (Aunty) Kaye Price AM
• Rachel Perry 
• Carolyn Tran
• Jon Twing, Senior Vice President, Psychometrics & Testing, Pearson

Honorary Associates

• Sally Egan, Deputy Director, National Catholic Education
• Samantha Pickering
  
• Mark Grant PSM

• Kathryn Bartimote
• Nikki Brunker
• Wayne Cotton
• Christopher Day
• Christine Grice
• Rachael Hains-Wesson
• Lilia Mantai
• Manjula Sharma
• Helen Watt
• Hongzhi (Veronica) Yang
• Michael Jacobson

Visiting Scholars 

• Associate Professor Ai Wang, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Sichuan Province, China (December 2022 – December 2023) - Research concerning establishing a "multi-scene + multi-modality + multi-emotion" evaluation model to evaluate pilots’ language proficiency with consideration of emotion factors.
• Li Yiying, School of Public Administration, Liaoning Province, China (September 2023 – August 2024) - With a focus on the topics about the impact of academic teachers’ mobility on scientific research productivity and the development of colleges and universities. How to balance the resources between stayers and returnees, how to assess the effectiveness of their work using appropriate measurements, these questions will lead and direct research directions.
• Associate Professor Na Zhang (Anna), Capital Normal University, Beijing, China (September 2023 – September 2024) - Research concerning high-order thinking, curiosity, creativity, and intervention programs.

This group has a total membership of 170 made up of those in the educational community who are involved in assessment, measurement, and psychometric projects. Generally, around 40 members attend a meeting, depending on their interest in the presentation. We aim to meet every 6-8 weeks.

We have partnered with the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) in order to support teachers’ engagement with, and understanding of, assessment and the use of data to inform teaching and learning.

We collaborate with the education school sectors to build depth of expertise and to develop solutions that prioritise meeting students’ needs and address patterns of educational attainment and disadvantage.

Our professional learning programs are based on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers to enable teachers to meet their accreditation requirements. Our education partners have endorsed, and help to deliver our Assessment Literacy and Data Literacy modules.  In addition, we are collaboratively designing more professional learning programs for teachers and schools, and have contributed articles to our partners’ journals.

Beyond NSW we have partnerships with the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, the University of Western Australia and the University of Salerno, Italy.

We partner with the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Education (DVCE) and within the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, we have partnerships with the Centre for Research on Learning and Innovation (CRLI), the Special Education Team, Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education (SICLE) and the Educational Leadership Team.