Amanda Telford

Amanda is a Professor in the National School of Education in the Faculty of Education & Arts at ACU and the State Head of Victoria overseeing 200 academic staff and 3500 higher education students across Melbourne and Ballarat Campuses. Amanda has a passion for leadership, strategic planning, capacity building, people building, developing partnerships and transforming learning environments and experiences and quality enhancement. Amanda has worked within both the secondary and tertiary sectors in educational leadership roles. In addition to experience as an academic (Associate Professor, Associate Dean Education (Learning & Teaching), Interim Associate Dean Partnerships, Acting Associate Dean Research, Acting Dean, Deputy Head of School Learning and Teaching and National Head of Discipline (Postgraduate Education), Program Director of Health and Physical Education at RMIT & Federation Universities) she also has had experience as a company director specialising in teacher professional learning for over 15,000 health and physical education teachers over 20 years. Amanda has exceptionally strong links with industry across the education, sport and health communities and sectors. During 2020 and previously Amanda was the Chair of the Health and Physical Education Tertiary Alliance of Victoria (HPETAV) made up of the eight Victorian Universities. Amanda has been an advisor for state and federal governments within health and physical education and was involved in the development of Australia's 2004 National Physical Activity Guidelines for children and youth and her physical activity measures developed with Professor Jo Salmon have been used in over 50 countries. She has a strong background in learning and teaching and known for her vision to provide leadership to the teaching profession for both pre- and in-service teachers in Australia. Amanda has been a chief investigator on over 3 million dollars of research grants and was a chief investigator on the TransformUs NHMRC Partnership grant. Along with her research collaborators Amanda was awarded 2020 Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australasia (CAPHIA) Award for Excellence and Innovation in Public Health Team Research (Led by Jo Salmon). Amanda has co-authored over 60 books and has over 100 teaching and learning publications used throughout Australia and NZ including the award winning Secondary and Tertiary books. Amanda has played/coached sport at a state, national and international level. Currently Amanda is Head coach of the Women's program at Essendon Baseball Club and the Victorian U14 Girls Softball Coach for the 2025/2026 Softball Australia National Championships.