Dr Asha Chand
Associate Dean International South Asia/Senior Lecturer and Journalism Area Convenor
Western Sydney University, Australia.
Dr Chand is an award winning academic and journalist with seven years of recent experience in building international relationships in the tertiary education sector. She has won international, Australian national, and Western Sydney University awards for her contributions to education, teaching excellence, innovative student-centered journalism and community development projects.
Asha is a 2024 recipient of a $459,000 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) grant to lead a fellowship program to train 12 international fellows with a focus on journalism for change and betterment of society. She is working on the project to develop ongoing international collaborations for impactful grassroots improvements via journalism and media.
Some of her works are available on her website: https://ashachand.wordpress.com
Asha is
Associate Dean International (ADI) South Asia, Senior Lecturer and Journalism
Area Convenor in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western
Sydney University, Australia. She is an academic, international education
leader and journalist with a combined experience of more than 40 years.
She is
a 2023 recipient of the Nav Rattan (nine jewels) of India. Asha received the
award in Delhi on the eve of India's Republic Day (January 26) celebrations,
amid much pomp and ceremony. She was among only nine Non Resident Indians
(NRIs) chosen out of a diaspora of several million Indians across the globe,
for this award which salutes her for 'keeping the flag of India high' via
her teaching, research, and community work.
Asha
was recognised for her journalism and research at the House of Commons in
London in October, 2018 with the Mahatma
Gandhi Pravasi Samman award, followed by the 2019 Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) award on the eve of
India's Republic Day in Delhi.
In 2021
she won an Australian journalism teaching award from the Journalism Education
Research Association of Australia (JERAA). She became a Senior Fellow of the
Higher Education Academy, UK and fellow of Badugulang, Western Sydney
University's Centre for Teaching and Learning Excellence, in 2020.
Asha's
research interests are in culture, journalism: Constructive News and Solutions
Journalism, marriage, media, migration, society, and culture. She has also
published on journalism research and the use of media technologies in storytelling.
Her research work has been published in national and international
journals. Her PhD research, titled Migration, Matchmaking, and
the Media: Fiji Indians in Sydney, has contributed significantly to
understanding the Indian diaspora and its continuation of cultural practices
across the globe.
Dr
Chand has won Australian national recognition for excellence in tertiary
teaching. She is a 2015 recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s excellence in
teaching award for her role in developing hybrid online courses at Western
Sydney University.
Dr Chand has been successful with Australian Government New Colombo Plan (NCP) funding and took a group of students to Nepal on a study tour in 2016 to report on the aftermath of the 2015 earthquakes. She led a similar study tour to Fiji in 2017 and one to West Bengal, India, in 2018.
She is a 2024 recipient of a $45,000 NCP funding for a food security and solutions journalism project to India.
Asha
migrated to Australia in 1998 and joined Western Sydney
University's journalism program in 2003. Prior to this, Asha was the Chief
of Staff at The Fiji Times,
Fiji's national daily newspaper then published by News Limited. Asha's
journalism experience stretches from local politics to international coverage
of meetings such as the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Edinburgh,
Scotland in 1997 where she met Nelson Mandela.
Asha
also supervises PhD and Master of Research students in the areas of her
specialisations.
A full
list of Asha's publications can be found here: Google
Scholar
a.chand@westernsydney.edu.au