Dr. Louise Townsin leads the Research Management Services unit at Torrens University Australia.
She provides strategic support for research and research training activities and develops and implements systems and processes that promote high quality research management, monitoring and reporting for both internal development and external reporting purposes. Dr. Townsin also undertakes research in Education and Health, focusing on intercultural communication and cultural contexts of learning, teaching and health and wellbeing. Her current research includes teacher professional development, stigma of mental illness, access to health services by culturally and linguistically diverse consumers, and community engagement in research. She uses qualitative methods, including participatory action research, to explore educational interventions to encourage sustainable attitudinal and behavioural change.
Work for CID:
Louise Townsin wrote KC109: Border Crossing.
She is a writer, researcher, scholar, speaker and practitioner with expertise in mixed-methods research, media literacies, media and parenting, popular culture, civic imagination, and globalization. Her recent publications include three co-authored books: 
Jess researches at the intersection of critical discourse and disability studies. Her scholarship focuses on discourse around disability, neurodiversity, & social justice. Her most recent work analyzes digital activism in disability rights and justice movements. She is also working on open educational resources on inclusive pedagogy and communication studies. She has recently co-edited the anthology Disability in Dialogue for John Benjamins’ Dialogue Series (with Mariaelena Bartesaghi).
She was born and raised in Milan, Italy, and is an expat to the United States since her 20s, so intercultural dialogue is an everyday accomplishment for her. She is an associate professor of communication at the University of South Florida. She is a discourse analyst, who studies institutional discourse in social settings, such as psychotherapy, psychiatry, medicine, academia and crisis. She was the Editor in Chief of Qualitative Research in Medicine and Healthcare from 2016 to 2021 and has published in Discourse Studies, Applied Linguistics in Professional Practice, The Review of Communication and Language Under Discussion. She has recently co-edited the anthology Disability in Dialogue for John Benjamin’s Dialogue Series (with Jessica Hughes) and is working on a book on crisis discourse. She is delighted to have introduced many graduate students to discourse studies, and the empirical study of dialogue. Many of her once doctoral advisees now study dialogue in their own work.
Roiha obtained his PhD (University of Jyväskylä, Finland) in 2020. His doctoral research examined the long-term effects of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) on former students’ lives. One of his PhD articles, co-written with 
She has been a visiting faculty member in EM Normandie in France and has conducted intercultural programs for Dassault Systemes, Naval Group, and Forvia, to name a few positions. Raised in a diverse country like India, Pratha was inspired by the cultural adaptability that people exhibited to function harmoniously. She wanted to be a catalyst in making intercultural interactions easier and that’s when she decided to be an interculturalist.
