Josephine Paparo, an Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology from the School of Psychological Sciences, received the honour for her commitment to shaping the next generation through transformative learning experiences, simulation-based education, and the advancement of postgraduate psychology training.
Professor Maria Kangas, Head of the School of Psychological Sciences, congratulated her colleague on the accolade.
“Associate Professor Jo Paparo is an outstanding educator whose leadership, innovation and commitment to students has an immediate and lasting impact,” she says.
“This award is a well-deserved recognition of her dedicated hard work and commitment to enhancing the learning experience and outcomes of students at our university.”
The AAUT awards celebrate the contributions of educators who have demonstrated excellence in teaching, leadership and enhancing the student experience across higher education in Australia.
“As an educator with a passion for student-centred education and course delivery, it’s an honour to receive such recognition and I’m grateful to the AAUT assessment panel for this acknowledgement,” Associate Professor Paparo said.
“It’s been a privilege to work with so many like-minded colleagues, both at Macquarie University and collaborators at other institutions, on the initiatives that contributed to this award, and seeing the great things we can achieve together in service of our students.”
The recognition is not the first for Associate Professor Paparo. In 2023, she was awarded Senior Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy and won the Vice-Chancellor’s Educational Leader Award, and in 2021 she collected a Teaching Excellence Award within the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences.
In 2020, Associate Professor Paparo founded and led the Australian Postgraduate Psychology Education Simulation Working Group (APPESWG), which developed national best-practice guidelines for simulated learning in psychology. Originally designed to support students during COVID-19, these guidelines have since been recognised for their potential to improve education access, especially for rural and remote students.
Also during the pandemic, Associate Professor Paparo found new ways to replicate the on-campus lecture experience online, making her unit one of the highest-rated for student satisfaction within the Open Universities Australia portfolio.
As Director of the Master of Professional Psychology course, Associate Professor Paparo oversaw significant improvements, making it one of the faculty’s top-performing coursework programs. She also launched a first of its kind cross-disciplinary Interprofessional Education Panel within her faculty.
