Professor Mathew White is an Honorary Principal Fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, where he has been a Fellow since 2006. Concurrently, he holds the position of Deputy Dean (International) in the Faculty of Arts, Business, Law, and Economics (ABLE) at the University of Adelaide, where he is a Professor of Education leading two Faculty Associate Deans and seven Associate Heads International across ABLE's seven schools including Adelaide Business School, Adelaide Law School, Elder Conservatorium of Music, School of Economics and Public Policy, School of Education, School of Humanities, and School of Social Sciences.

Mathew is a registered teacher with twenty-one years of K-12 teaching experience (1996-2017) as a SACE, VCE, and IB Diploma English and French (and Examiner), leadership as a Director of Wellbeing, and coordinating the International Baccalaureate Diploma program, completing his PhD in Education at the University of Adelaide in 2004. Mathew moved to academia in 2018 as an Associate Professor of Education (40/40/20) at the University of Adelaide.

Mathew's research focuses on transforming education through wellbeing science integration into leadership, teaching practice, and policy, with scholarship spanning new theories for wellbeing education, the 'wellbeing learning poverty cycle,' application of Peterson and Seligman's Character Strengths and Virtues Classification and Seligman's PERMA theory, and development of an interdisciplinary consensus wellbeing model with international colleagues.

Author of eight books and 69 peer-reviewed publications, his research excellence has been recognised with the 2024 Australian Council for Educational Leaders Hedley Beare Award for Educational Writing and the Stephen Cole the Elder Award (the University of Adelaide's highest teaching distinction). In 2023, he was an academic visitor at the University of Oxford's Department for Education.

In his University of Adelaide leadership role, he oversees the Faculty of ABLE's internationalisation strategy, which includes more than 80 partnerships, serves as an International Ambassador for the University, and collaborates with the Division of External Engagement to strengthen global research and teaching partnerships. Professor White is a Senior Fellow of the UK's Higher Education Academy (2024), a Fellow of the International Positive Psychology Association (2021), a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators (2018), and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Man and welcomes research proposals from prospective PhD and Masters students in wellbeing education, educational leadership, and curriculum and pedagogy.

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Mathew White

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Faculty of Education

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Mathew White

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