Rate My Professor Kate Smithers

Dr Kate Smithers serves as Honorary Lecturer in the School of Education within the College of Human and Social Futures at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy and Bachelor of Teaching (Honours) from the University of Newcastle, along with a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching from the University of Wollongong. Her doctoral research focused on the intersection of tourism and education in Zimbabwe, specifically examining philanthropic tourism in Matabeleland North through a Foucauldian lens. From 2019, her research interests have broadened to the nature of contract research in higher education, exploring how policies shape academic experiences and how casualisation affects precarious workers. Additional areas include research methods, honours student pedagogies, and the experiences of research students. Keywords associated with her work encompass Zimbabwe, developmentourism, Foucault, higher education, sociology of education, and virtual reality. She has contributed to teaching across multiple courses, including as a marker for EDUC6785 Educational Foundations (2019-2021), sessional tutor for EDUC4940 Research Design and Critique (2019-2021), sessional academic for EDUC3800 Intercultural Understanding for Educators (2018), and sessional tutor and lecturer for EDUC1103 Schooling, Identity and Society (2018-2021), as well as EDUC1038 Foundations of Secondary Education (2019-2021).

Smithers is the author of the book Tourism, Philanthropy and School Tours in Zimbabwe: Problematising “Win-Win” Discourses (2024) and co-author of CASUALISATION, THE GIG ECONOMY, AND PIECE WORK IN EDUCATION: Dilemmas for Leaders in Times of Increasing Precarity (2025). Notable chapters include 'A Bourdieusian analysis of how precariously employed academics gain permanent employment' (2025), 'Casualisation, The Gig Economy, and Piece Work in Education: Unpacking the ethical dilemmas of educational leaders in times of increasing precarity' (2025), and 'Developmentourism and school tours in Zimbabwe' (2022). Her journal articles feature 'Just because you are staying does not mean you are ‘stuck’: conceptualisations of academic mobility for precarious academics' in Discourse (2026), 'The rise of the pro-sessional: precarious employees taking on complex and faculty-critical roles' in Discourse (2026), and 'The skills, knowledge, and attributes of the supervising teacher in initial teacher education: a framework for research and professional development' in Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (2026). She currently holds the position of HDR Pathways Course Director at Charles Sturt University.