Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

Dart Centre Australasia

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  Cait McMahon

  Managing Director

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  Cait McMahon PhD (Cand.) is a registered psychologist and fulltime managing director of Dart Centre Australasia, with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia and activities throughout the Asia Pacific region. McMahon has been interested in the nexus of journalism and trauma since working as staff counsellor at The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia in the mid ‘80’s and 90’s. This interest resulted in postgraduate research in the area in 1993 with subsequent publications.

  To date, Cait is the only Australian psychologist to be published in the area of journalism and trauma. She has a significant history of clinical private practice, organisational development consulting and employee assistance programs.  Cait continues to pursue further research at Swinburne University in Melbourne into journalism and trauma, focussing on both post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress experienced by news media professionals.

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  Gary Tippet

  Director

  Gary Tippet is a senior writer for The Age in Melbourne, Australia. He was the first Australian to be awarded an Ochberg Fellowship, in the year 2004.

  Gary began in journalism in 1972, at the Sun News-Pictorial and joined The Sunday Age in 1993, moving to The Age when the two papers merged in 1998. In the time since, he has have covered some of Australia's biggest stories including the East Timor crisis of late 1999-2000, the Thredbo ski resort landslide, the Moura coalmine collapse in Queensland, and a number of major crime stories including the disappearance and murder of Jaidyn Leskie, the Port Arthur massacre and the Bega schoolgirls murder trial. In 2000 he covered the military coup in Fiji.

  Much of Gary’s writing has focused on trauma and its victims.

  In 1997 he won a Walkley, for Slaying The Monster, an account of an abused child who, 30 years later, returned to kill his molester with an axe, and has won two Quill's and three Legal Reporting Awards.

  In recent years, Gary has written a number of articles on motor vehicle trauma, includinh Fatalities #74 and #75; April's Story and Sudden Impact, in which he spent three months following the victim of a serious injury road accident, from crash to recovery. The result was a 10,000 word, four broadsheet page special report, which won the 2002 Transport Quill Award.

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  Lisa Millar

  Director

  Lisa Millar is a senior journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, working in both radio and television as a journalist and presenter. She won a Walkley Award for investigative reporting in 2005, and in 2007 was named an Ochberg Fellow.

  She was a foreign correspondent for the ABC in Washington, D.C., for three years and has covered major stories in Asia, London and America, including the 2005 Bali bombing and the controversial hanging of an Australian drug runner in Singapore.

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  Trina McLellan

  Executive Member

  With a career in journalism and communication spanning 25 years, Trina McLellan is a founding board member of Dart Centre Australasia.

  Currently working at The Courier-Mail in Brisbane as a newspaper sub-editor and occasional online sub-editor, Trina has also designed and delivered tertiary journalism courses and worked in communication roles in higher education, the public service and private enterprise. She has researched the impact of news reporting on victims and survivors of traumatic incidents and completed a Master of Arts thesis based on this research. She also assists in the delivery of training courses, gives guest lectures and tutorials to journalism students and co-operates with other Dart Centre members on specific trauma and journalism projects.

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  Jim Tully

  Executive Member

  Jim Tully is Head of School and Program Director, Journalism, in the School of Political Science and Communication at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He holds a Master of Arts with Honours and a Graduate Diploma in Journalism and teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses. He also researches in the areas of media ethics, science communication and foreign news.

  Before moving into academia in 1987, Tully worked for 18 years in daily newspapers, becoming editorial manager and assistant editor of The Auckland Star and editor of weekend newspaper 8 O'Clock.

  While Pacific Affairs writer for The Auckland Star he was inaugural winner of the New Zealand Journalist of the Year Award for coverage of the Cook Islands election scandal.

  Later, as an editorial executive, he had delivered in-house training. During his career, Tully has been a member of the Journalists' Training Board, chair of the Auckland Institute of Technology's Journalism Advisory Committee, and a former president of the Northern Journalists' Union.

  Tully has just been commissioned to write the new national journalism text by the industry organisation which oversees journalism training in New Zealand. He is also editing a book on risk communication.

  Tully has been a UNESCO consultant on journalism in Western Samoa and the Cook Islands and has also been the New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee representative on the National Advisory Committee on Media Studies.

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  Kerry Green

  Executive Member

  Kerry Green is associate professor and head of the school of Professional Communication at the University of Canberra. He has been a print journalist, editor of the Queensland Times and various other news management roles. He continues to research trauma in the newsroom which embraces how newsroom practice affects journalists and audiences.

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  Kimina Lyall

  Treasurer

  Kimina Lyall is currently the Group Executive for Corporate Development at Australian Unity, a company with business operations in healthcare, financial services, aged care and retirement living. Before joining Australian Unity, Kimina spent almost 15 years as a journalist, including a period as Southeast Asia correspondent for The Australian.

  Her experiences during that posting led to a Walkley award nomination, along with the publication of her first book, Out of the Blue - Facing the Tsunami. Along with her work with the Dart Centre, Kimina is a board member of Great Connections, an organisation which aims to connect retired volunteers with high-level management skills with the not-for-profit sector.
   
  Prior to her study and work as a journalist Kimina spent time in the community sector including working in youth housing and on policy issues concerning young women and care and protection issues. Kimina has also been involved in volunteering at several community radio stations in Melbourne.

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  Rowan McClean

  Company Secretary

  Rowan McClean is a Certified Management Consultant with an accounting qualification and an MBA from the Ivey Business School in Canada. He established consulting group Dench McClean Carlson in 1990 and continued as Company Secretary until February 2009.

  Rowan has lived and worked in Australia, Canada, Indonesia and Japan and has been a staff member at various times with PA Consulting Group, Ernst & Young and the Australian Trade Commissioner Service. Earlier, he was a Business Development Officer in Papua New Guinea and an auditor with a medium sized Chartered Accountancy firm in Australia that later merged with Price Waterhouse Coopers. Since 2005 he has implemented service industries projects in Pakistan, the Philippines, China and Vietnam with WTO/UNCTAD.

  Rowan is experienced across many industries, with expertise in Organisation Reviews, Strategic Planning, Governance and International Business. He was General Manager of a high-tech manufacturing operation supplying the radio and television sector, and has taught part-time at Universities in Australia, Canada and Indonesia.

  He is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants in Australia, Chairman of Professional Solutions Australia, Honorary Treasurer and a Facilitation Committee member of the Climate Emergency Network, founding trustee of the Overseas Kids Foundation, a member of the Rotary Club of North Balwyn and Kew Golf Club, an advisor to Camcare and a member of the Boroondara Business Network Committee. His active interests include international affairs, music, and sport.