Dr Phil Cummins is the Hooke Family Professor of Practice in Educational Leadership and Founder and Director of the Sydney Character Initiative in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. An internationally recognised educator, researcher, writer and speaker with almost four decades of experience in thousands of schools and the education sector more broadly, he is also Founder and Managing Director of CIRCLE Education, a global consulting group in educational strategy and leadership which leads the world’s largest research program into character education, and co-host of the Game Changers podcast (with over 1,000,000 episode downloads over 18 series). The author of more than forty books, Phil’s work explores character, leadership, education, and the future of learning. Phil also lectures for Boston University on Australian

Character and Democracy, for Oxford University’s Smith School on leadership, is Bigfala (Chief Executive) of the Association of International Schools in the South Pacific, and holds multiple fellowships. 

Dr Stephanie Wescott is a feminist lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Education at Monash University where her work focuses on gender, schooling and violence prevention. Her research examines the influence of misogynistic and manosphere ideologies in education settings, school-based gendered violence, and the institutional conditions that shape how gendered harms are recognised, responded to and prevented in schools. Stephanie’s work sits at the intersection of education, sociology and gender studies, with a particular focus on schools as critical sites for both the reproduction and prevention of gender-based violence.

Stephanie is internationally recognised for pioneering empirical research on the influence of the manosphere in schools, including co-authoring the first study globally to examine Andrew Tate’s influence in education settings. Her research has informed policy and public debate nationally and internationally, including citations in violence prevention frameworks, government reviews and media reporting across Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. She regularly works with schools, teachers and policymakers to support whole-school approaches to prevention and has delivered professional learning to educators across multiple Australian jurisdictions.

CWAA Founder and Chair