University academic practice is itself one of the major areas of expertise I have developed over more than twenty-five years. My academic career has required considerably more than specialist knowledge of particular subjects. It has involved teaching and communicating complex material to very different audiences, designing courses and complete degrees, supervising researchers using different methodologies, conducting interdisciplinary research, publishing, obtaining research funding, examining and assessing, providing academic leadership and administering university programmes.
I have taught in universities since 2001 and held continuing academic appointments since joining Atax at the University of New South Wales in 2002. I progressed from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor before moving to the University of Western Australia as Winthrop Professor of Law in 2014.
During that period I have worked across unusually diverse educational environments: conventional lectures, small seminars, postgraduate professional programmes, distance and hybrid education, intensive residential teaching, executive education, international classrooms, research supervision and individual mentoring.
I regard the ability to teach, research and communicate effectively across these different environments as a significant professional expertise in its own right.
University Teaching
I have more than two decades of sustained university teaching experience.
This has ranged from large undergraduate lectures to highly specialised postgraduate seminars. I have taught students encountering a subject for the first time, advanced postgraduate students, practising lawyers and accountants, government officials and senior tax administrators.
These are quite different teaching tasks.
An undergraduate lecture requires the construction of an intellectual framework through which students can progressively understand unfamiliar material. A postgraduate professional class can assume substantial existing knowledge but must demonstrate why advanced academic analysis matters to practice. A small seminar depends upon discussion and intellectual responsiveness. Executive education for experienced officials requires credibility, precision and the ability to engage constructively with participants who may possess greater practical experience of particular administrative problems than the academic delivering the programme.
My experience across these settings has made adaptability one of the defining characteristics of my teaching.
Distance, Hybrid and Flexible Education
I acquired substantial experience in flexible education unusually early in my academic career.
Atax at UNSW was an early adopter of distance and hybrid postgraduate education. Its students were frequently professionals studying taxation while maintaining demanding full-time careers and often living some distance from the university.
Teaching successfully in this environment required a different approach from simply transferring a conventional lecture course to distance students. Materials needed to be sufficiently structured to support substantial independent learning while retaining meaningful interaction with academics.
I subsequently helped develop and deliver intensive teaching models in which working professionals undertook substantial preparation remotely and then travelled to attend concentrated four- or five-day university programmes.
This model required careful integration of independent preparation, intensive face-to-face teaching, discussion, problem solving and assessment.
When I developed the Master of Taxation at UWA from 2015, I carried this experience into the new programme. The result was a postgraduate structure designed specifically around the circumstances of professional students rather than expecting professionals simply to adapt themselves to a traditional university timetable.
My experience with hybrid and intensive education therefore substantially predates the widespread movement towards these forms of university teaching.
Professional Postgraduate Education
Professional postgraduate education has been a major part of my academic career.
There is an important difference between teaching a professional subject academically and providing professional training. A strong postgraduate programme must do both without collapsing one into the other.
Students need technically accurate knowledge that they can apply immediately in professional practice. But a Master’s degree must also take them beyond rules and procedures. It should develop their capacity to interpret difficult material, evaluate competing positions, understand the structure underlying technical rules and solve problems for which there is no predetermined answer.
My work at both UNSW and UWA has involved developing this combination.
My postgraduate students have included accountants, lawyers, tax advisers, government officials and other experienced professionals. Their practical knowledge enriches the classroom, but it also requires teaching capable of moving beyond introductory explanation.
I have consequently developed an approach in which professional experience becomes a resource for advanced academic learning rather than something separated from it.
Executive and Government Education
I have undertaken a substantial amount of high-level executive and government education.
This has gone considerably beyond ordinary professional continuing education.
I developed and delivered specially commissioned intensive programmes for the Australian Taxation Office, including multi-day taxation and enforcement courses. I also repeatedly delivered intensive international taxation programmes for senior officials of the Korean National Tax Service.
My work in China has included educational and technical engagement with government officials in the context of institutional and legislative reform.
These environments demand a particular kind of academic communication. Participants are not students in the conventional sense. They are experienced professionals and officials seeking advanced knowledge that must withstand scrutiny against their own practical experience.
The academic therefore needs to communicate sophisticated theory and technical analysis without becoming either excessively abstract or simplistically vocational.
This experience has substantially developed my ability to translate complex scholarship into forms appropriate to highly knowledgeable non-academic audiences.
International Teaching
International teaching has been a significant part of my academic career.
I have successfully delivered substantive technical academic teaching, seminars and specialist programmes in Australia and internationally, including in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine. I have delivered academic and professional presentations in an even wider range of international settings.
Teaching overseas is not simply domestic teaching in another location.
Different educational cultures produce different expectations concerning the role of the lecturer, classroom participation, disagreement, assessment and the relationship between theoretical and practical knowledge.
My background in Asian Studies, linguistics, intercultural communication and languages has been particularly useful in these environments.
I am accustomed to communicating with students for whom English is not their first language without assuming that this indicates any corresponding limitation in intellectual or technical sophistication.
Teaching Across Cultures
One of my particular strengths as a university teacher is working with students from different linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds.
This has developed through decades of international teaching and through my own extensive experience studying languages and educational systems outside the English-speaking world.
Students can approach the same classroom with quite different expectations about what a university teacher is supposed to do. Some are accustomed to active seminar discussion; others have been educated in systems in which publicly challenging a professor is unusual. Some demonstrate understanding readily through spontaneous spoken English while others may possess equally sophisticated knowledge but require more time to formulate it in a second or third language.
Recognising these differences is important to equitable teaching.
My work in intercultural communication has given me a theoretical framework for something I had already encountered repeatedly in practice: successful international education requires more than linguistic comprehensibility. It requires an awareness that communication itself occurs within cultural contexts.
Teaching Quality
I have consistently been a highly rated university teacher across the different forms of education I have delivered.
I regard this consistency as particularly significant because my teaching has not been confined to one format or one student population.
I have taught conventional university classes, intensive programmes, distance and hybrid students, specialist postgraduate classes, international students, practising professionals and senior government officials.
Effective teaching across these environments depends upon command of the subject, but subject expertise alone is insufficient. It requires the ability to identify what an audience already understands, determine where the conceptual difficulty actually lies and reconstruct an explanation accordingly.
That process is itself an intellectual skill.
Curriculum and Course Development
Curriculum design has been one of the strongest components of my academic work.
I have developed numerous individual university subjects, including specialist courses in Chinese taxation, international taxation, international tax law and policy and double tax agreements.
I have also designed at programme level.
At UNSW I played a major role in postgraduate taxation education, including development of the Master of International Taxation.
After moving to UWA, I developed the Master of Taxation in 2015. This involved designing an integrated postgraduate degree and developing ten taxation units rather than merely adding an individual subject to an existing programme. I subsequently managed the programme and taught the majority of its curriculum.
Programme design requires a different perspective from teaching a single course. Decisions must be made about what constitutes the intellectual core of a discipline, the sequence in which knowledge should be developed, the relationship among subjects, appropriate forms of assessment and the capabilities a graduate should possess at the completion of the degree.
My experience therefore encompasses teaching at the level of the individual class, course design and the architecture of complete university programmes.
Assessment and Examination
Assessment is another substantial component of my academic experience.
Beyond ordinary university marking, I have undertaken examining and assessment roles for universities and major professional bodies.
I have served as an examiner in Australian and Singapore international taxation for the Chartered Institute of Taxation, undertaken examination work for accounting professional bodies, and served as an independent programme examiner for the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
These roles require the ability to distinguish genuine mastery from superficial reproduction of material and to judge whether assessment appropriately measures the knowledge and intellectual capabilities expected at a particular academic or professional level.
They also provide an external comparative perspective on academic standards beyond one’s own university.
Research Methodology
My research training and experience extend across an unusually broad range of methodologies.
My earliest quantitative preparation came through accounting and business education, including a High Distinction in statistics. I subsequently undertook further formal quantitative research-methods training through postgraduate linguistics.
At the same time, my legal scholarship developed extensive experience in doctrinal research: close analysis of legislation, cases, treaties, legal concepts and their systematic relationships.
My China research required different methods again. I undertook qualitative and ethnographically informed field research involving officials and institutions, examining the difference between formal descriptions of institutional arrangements and their operation in practice.
My work in sociology and intercultural communication has involved qualitative approaches, while my historical scholarship has required primary-source analysis, historiography, palaeography and the critical use of historical evidence.
Linguistics added quantitative and comparative methods, semantic analysis and approaches to language change. Theology has required textual exegesis, historical-critical methodology, philosophical analysis and engagement with ancient texts and traditions.
I therefore approach research methodology pragmatically but rigorously. The research question should determine the method rather than the researcher’s disciplinary habit determining which questions can be asked.
Interdisciplinary Research
Interdisciplinary research has been a defining feature of my academic career.
My work regularly crosses boundaries among law, economics, taxation, political economy, sociology, China Studies, history, linguistics, psychology, philosophy and theology.
Meaningful interdisciplinary research is more difficult than simply citing literature from several disciplines.
Each discipline possesses characteristic concepts, methods, evidentiary expectations and intellectual histories. Moving between them requires understanding why researchers within each field regard particular forms of evidence and argument as persuasive.
My extensive formal study outside law has been important in this respect. Rather than approaching other disciplines solely as an external legal scholar borrowing useful concepts, I have repeatedly undertaken formal study in the disciplines themselves.
This has progressively changed the way I conduct research.
Doctoral and Research Supervision
Research supervision has been another significant component of my university work.
I have supervised doctoral and other research projects through to completion across projects employing doctrinal, quantitative and qualitative methods.
Some of the doctoral research I have supervised has examined the effects of religion, culture, trust and other social variables upon attitudes towards government and taxation, requiring empirical research extending well beyond conventional legal methodology.
Supervising research of this kind requires more than subject knowledge. A supervisor must help a researcher move from an interesting subject to a researchable question, select defensible methods, understand the limitations of the evidence, construct an argument and sustain a large independent research project through to completion.
My own methodological breadth has been particularly useful when supervising interdisciplinary work because I am comfortable with research that does not remain within conventional doctrinal boundaries.
Graduate Research Leadership
My experience with research students has also extended into university research administration.
At UWA I have served as Graduate Research Coordinator within the Law School, giving me responsibility extending beyond my own doctoral candidates to the wider environment in which higher-degree research is undertaken.
This includes the institutional dimensions of research candidature: progress, supervision, academic standards, milestones and the difficulties that can arise during long research projects.
It has reinforced my view that doctoral education involves both intellectual independence and structured institutional support.
Publication and Scholarly Communication
I have maintained an extensive publication record over more than two decades.
My work includes journal articles, book chapters, an edited scholarly book, commissioned reports and other academic publications across domestic and international outlets.
The subject matter is unusually broad, ranging from technical taxation and international law through Chinese institutions, political economy, rule of law, legal interpretation and linguistic questions.
I have also served in academic publishing roles, including as an editor of the eJournal of Taxation Research and on international conference editorial committees.
Publication is a distinct academic skill. Research must be transformed into an argument capable of surviving external scrutiny, positioned within an existing literature and communicated in a form appropriate to a particular scholarly audience.
My interdisciplinary work has required doing this for substantially different academic communities.
Research Funding and Projects
I have obtained significant competitive and commissioned research funding and participated in funded research projects involving both academic and practical institutional questions.
My research has been supported in contexts ranging from conventional university research through international and governmental work.
I have also served as an assessor for the Australian Research Council, providing another perspective on the evaluation of research quality, significance, methodology and feasibility.
Grant assessment and grant development require an ability to evaluate not merely whether a research idea is interesting but whether the question, method, research team and proposed outputs form a coherent and achievable project.
Academic Leadership
My academic career has included substantial leadership responsibilities.
At UNSW I served as Postgraduate Director at Atax. At UWA I have managed the postgraduate taxation programme, served as Associate Dean of Law with responsibility for international and community matters, and served as Graduate Research Coordinator.
I have also undertaken responsibilities relating to diversity, academic integrity and other aspects of university administration.
These roles span very different dimensions of university life: teaching programmes, international relationships, research training, student matters, academic standards and institutional governance.
My approach to academic administration is strongly influenced by having occupied so many different positions within the university. Administrative decisions ultimately affect students, teachers and researchers and should therefore remain connected to the academic purposes that university administration exists to support.
Academic Integrity
My work in academic integrity brings together several aspects of my academic experience.
Academic integrity is partly regulatory: universities require procedures for dealing fairly and consistently with plagiarism, inappropriate collaboration, fabrication and other forms of misconduct.
But it is also educational.
Students need to understand the intellectual reasons for attribution, independent work and the transparent use of evidence. This has become increasingly important as digital resources and generative artificial intelligence complicate older assumptions about authorship and academic work.
My experience in law, assessment, research methodology and academic administration provides complementary perspectives on these issues.
International Academic Engagement
My academic career has been strongly international.
I have held visiting and academic positions or undertaken significant academic work with institutions in China, Taiwan, Singapore and elsewhere and have presented and taught extensively across Asia and Europe.
I have convened international conferences and symposia and participated in academic events bringing together scholars, government officials and professionals.
My international engagement has not been incidental to my academic career. It has shaped my teaching, research and understanding of universities themselves.
Academic disciplines are international communities, but they operate through institutions embedded within particular national and cultural environments. Working across these environments has made me particularly conscious of both the universality and the cultural specificity of university practices.
Connecting Research and Teaching
I have never regarded research and teaching as fundamentally separate academic activities.
My strongest teaching normally emerges from areas in which I have undertaken substantial research or professional work. Research supplies the complexity, uncertainty and unresolved questions that prevent teaching from becoming the repetition of settled information.
Teaching, in turn, disciplines research.
Explaining a complex idea to students exposes gaps that can remain hidden in specialist writing. Students ask questions from perspectives different from those of established researchers. Professional postgraduate students test academic propositions against practical experience.
My long involvement in postgraduate professional education has made this interaction especially valuable.
Communication as an Academic Skill
A common thread through my university work is the communication of complex ideas.
I have had to communicate with first-time university students, doctoral researchers, experienced lawyers and accountants, international students, government officials, academics from other disciplines and general professional audiences.
The appropriate language, assumed knowledge and level of abstraction differ in each case.
My linguistic and intercultural background has made me particularly attentive to this problem. Communication is successful not when the speaker has expressed something accurately, but when the intended audience has been given the conceptual resources necessary to understand it accurately.
This applies equally to a lecture, an academic article, a research supervision meeting or an international executive programme.
My Work as a University Academic
I regard university academic practice as a substantive area of professional expertise developed over more than two decades.
I have taught continuously in universities since the beginning of the century and have progressed through the academic ranks from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and Professor. My teaching experience encompasses conventional lectures, seminars, distance and hybrid education, intensive postgraduate programmes, executive education, international teaching and individual research supervision.
I have designed individual subjects and entire postgraduate degrees. I have developed and managed programmes for working professionals. I have supervised research employing doctrinal, quantitative and qualitative methodologies. My own research has extended further into ethnographic, historical, linguistic and textual approaches.
I have published extensively, obtained substantial research funding, assessed research grants, examined university and professional programmes, edited academic publications and undertaken senior academic administration. My leadership roles have included postgraduate programme direction, Associate Dean, Graduate Research Coordinator, academic integrity responsibilities and other university service.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this experience is its breadth.
I have taught both students and senior government officials; worked in traditional and innovative educational formats; taught successfully across numerous countries and cultures; moved between professional and theoretical education; supervised research across methodological boundaries; and designed programmes from the level of an individual class to a complete Master’s degree.
The central academic skill connecting these activities is the capacity to take difficult knowledge seriously without making difficulty itself the objective: to understand a subject deeply, determine what another person needs in order to understand it, communicate it in an appropriate form, and create an intellectual environment in which students and researchers can ultimately work with that knowledge independently.
