Gabrielle is a PhD Candidate at the Crawford School of Public Policy under the supervision of Professor Janine O'Flynn. Gabrielle's doctoral research is exploring the role of lived experience knowledge and experts-by-experience in income support and unemployment policy making in Australia.

Gabrielle commenced her PhD after 18 years in the Australian Public Service (APS) and her research responds to identified challenges facing the APS – growing public expectations for more inclusive policy processes alongside the need for deeper and more diversified forms of evidence to address complex policy challenges. By examining how lived experience knowledge can complement traditional evidence forms, Gabrielle hopes to support the APS to develop a more nuanced understanding of knowledge integration in policy making.

As a practitioner-researcher, Gabrielle prioritises research for policy impact: generating practical insights to support governments to transform how they engage with people impacted by policy choices, and to support policy makers to design people-centred policies that truly respond to the needs of the public they serve. As critical policy scholar, Gabrielle’s research focuses on policy areas where people’s voices have been traditionally marginalised in policy circles, such as income support and unemployment.

Gabrielle is an experienced mentor, coach and facilitator of public sector training programs. She has designed and delivered practitioner-led policy capability initiatives for several Australian and international government agencies.

Gabrielle holds a Masters of Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Bachelor of Social Work with Honours, and a Bachelor of Arts (Drama) from the University of Queensland.