Rate My Professor Amber Hughes

Ms Amber Hughes is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, within the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre and the College of Human and Social Futures. She completed her PhD in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle in 2025, with a doctoral thesis titled 'critical and feminist informed critique of mathematics curriculum and policy for Indigenous students in Australia, and the implications for researcher positioning and subjectivities within Indigenous-led spaces of knowledge creation.' She also holds a Primary Teaching qualification from the University of Newcastle. Her research specializations include deconstructing prominent mathematics education policy discourses in Australia, framing equity and social justice for Indigenous learners, critical policy as discourse methods, critical researcher reflexivity, assumptions in education policy discourse about powerful knowledge in the mathematics curriculum, social justice theorists, post-structural theory, critical mathematics education research frameworks, Indigenist research, Critical Indigenous Studies discourses, and equity in higher education for underrepresented groups such as low-socioeconomic, refugee and asylum seeker, and Indigenous students. She engages in evaluative research with community partners including the Department of Communities and Justice, Family Action Centre, and The Paul Ramsay Foundation, and contributes to projects like the Thriving Schools initiative and collaborative Indigenous mathematics materials with Associate Professor Edward Doolittle and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance.

Amber Hughes has built extensive research experience since 2016 through various roles at the University of Newcastle, including Research Assistant positions in the School of Education, Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, and Faculty of Science; Conference Manager for the 45th annual MERGA conference and Project Manager for the 44th; Research and Practice Officer in evaluation; and her current Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Her key publications include the 2025 journal article 'Equitable outcomes and indigenous learners of mathematics: deconstructing Australian education policy' in the International Journal of Inclusive Education; the 2020 article 'Positioning Indigenous knowledge systems within the Australian mathematics curriculum: investigating transformative paradigms with Foucault' in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education; and the 2018 article 'The contribution of Aboriginal epistemologies to mathematics education in Australia: Exploring the silences' in Educational Philosophy and Theory. She co-authored a book chapter in Decolonizing Western-Indigenous Dialogues and contributed to a special edition of Education Sciences. Awards include the College Best Publication Prize in 2023 and College HDR Publication Prize in 2021 from the College of Human and Social Futures, and selection as a University finalist twice in the Three Minute Thesis competition. She is an ongoing member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance, has led evaluative research projects, and presented at ATSIMA conferences including 'Disconnection to Connection: My story of coming to know with and through Indigenous ways of knowing' in 2023, webinars, and the Math Bundle project in Canada.