Dr Natalie McMaster | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

Dr Natalie McMaster is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Natalie is a core member of UniSC's Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre (ITRC), where her research aligns with the centre’s focus on fostering culturally responsive education and addressing socio-demographic challenges in diverse communities.

Dr Natalie McMaster is an AITSL accredited Lead Teacher who started her teaching career in a bilingual school in a remote community in the Northern Territory and continued teaching in various remote communities in early childhood, primary and middle years settings. She moved into the corporate area of education as Education Advisor for Physical Education, undertaking education policy and teacher professional development roles for the Department of Education in the Northern Territory. In 2011, Natalie was on the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), Health and Physical Education National Panel and began working for ACARA as an advisor on Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia priority in its inclusion in Health and Physical Education. She went on to become a writer for the Australian Curriculum for Health and Physical Education.

Natalie’s PhD research is titled Voices from the field: Understanding the complexities of health work in Australian outer regional and remote schooling. The purpose of this mixed methods research was to explore the critical nature of health work in outer regional and remote schools, particularly in Northern Territory Government (NTG) schools with a high proportion of Indigenous students. Her PhD was part of an Australian Research Grant (ARC) with University of Queensland's School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. Passionate about Health and Physical Education, in 2019 Natalie published a textbook titled Teaching Health and Physical Education in Early Childhood and Primary Years of Schooling.

Natalie’s current program of research focusses on integrated STEM education and technologies education . Her primary research is a longitudinal project which began in 2022 which focuses on early positive STEM experiences prior to high school to raise awareness of, interest in, and aspirations for STEM-related subjects and careers. Natalie is a researcher in the MindSET-do research team of eight academics from UniSC, University of Queensland (UQ) and Edith Cowan University (ECU). She is also a member of the STEM research group in the School of Education and Tertiary Access and the UniSC representative for the Australian Technologies Teacher Educators Network (ATTEN) supported by the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE). In 2022, she edited and authored several chapters in the textbook titled Teaching with Technologies: Digital pedagogies for collaboration and creativity. She also designed the UniSC ieducate initiative to improve preservice teacher knowledge, confidence and skills in integrating technology into teaching programs.

Natalie is skilled in qualitative analysis and is currently learning modern quantitative analyses such as Rasch analysis, and management of large data sets in the longitudinal project. Natalie is a convenor for the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), special interest group (SIG) Technology and Learning and is responsible for growing a vibrant International community of researchers to exchange ideas, knowledge and form research partnerships.

Natalie has been awarded several grants including: over $2.2 million in Higher Education, Participation and Pathways Project (HEPPP) funding (2019 – 2025), $40,835 Regional Partnership Agreement for research with Sunshine Coast Council, $524,455 National Career Institute Partnership Grant, $100,000 Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources Maker Projects - Community STEM Engagement grant, $104,000 Google Educator Grants (2021 - 2025). Natalie was a finalist in the 2020 Women in Technology WiT awards in the Regional Award category for women living and working in Queensland’s regional location.

Natalie has strong connections with schools, local council, business and industry in the STEM, technologies and HPE space and uses these connections to bring strong stakeholder engagement to the research projects she undertakes. Natalie translates her research findings into teaching and professional development resources for schools, higher education, business and community education sectors.