Rate My Professor Melissa Merchant

Dr. Melissa Merchant is the Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) for the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) at Murdoch University, where she also holds the position of Senior Lecturer in English and Theatre. Previously serving as Academic Chair of English and Creative Writing, she has built a distinguished career at the institution, commencing her studies there with a Bachelor of Arts in English from 2002 to 2004, followed by Honours in Performance Studies in 2005, and culminating in a Doctor of Philosophy awarded in 2012. Her PhD thesis, "The Actress and Shakespeare: The Impact and Influence of the Actress on the Performance of Shakespeare During the Restoration," provides a detailed historiographical analysis of actresses' roles in Restoration-era Shakespeare performances.

Merchant's academic interests include Restoration theatre, Shakespeare, disability studies, actresses, popular culture, drama, theatre, and performance. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Her scholarly output includes peer-reviewed articles such as "Accessing subscription video on demand: A study of disability and streaming television in Australia" (2016, co-authored with K. Ellis, M. Kent, K. Locke), "Necropolitics in a post-apocalyptic zombie diaspora: The case of AMC’s The Walking Dead" (2021, with L. O’Mahony, S. Order), "‘The woman newly come, called Pegg’: an historiographical examination of Margaret Hughes as the Vere Street Desdemona" (2020), "Memes, Screens and Broadway Scenes: Popular Culture Representations of Shakespeare’s Actors in the Age of Participatory Media" (2021), "Disability media work" (2019, with K. Ellis), "Captions and the Cooking Show" (2017, with K. Ellis, N. Latter), and recent works like "The everyday experiences of female electric vehicle owners: insights from Western Australia" (2025, with L. O’Mahony, S. Order) and "‘There is a double meaning in that’: Bogan Shakespeare and double-access audiences" (2025). Additionally, she has co-edited "Performing Identity in the Era of COVID-19" and contributed to edited volumes on media and culture. Merchant has directed theatre productions including "Letters to Lindy" and continues to influence teaching and research in the performing arts.