Dr Kate Donelan is a Senior lecturer and Assistant Dean (Equal Opportunity) in the Faculty of Education. She is a member of the Artistic and Creative Education cluster. She coordinates Drama within pre-service and post-graduate arts education programs. Her academic work focuses on drama and arts education in primary, secondary, tertiary and community education and qualitative research methods for arts educators.
Kate has been actively involved in the development of the senior secondary drama and theatre studies curriculum in Victoria and nationally. She is currently Chairperson of the VCE Drama Examination Panel and the tertiary expert on the VCE Drama Review.
Before taking up her present position at Melbourne University, Kate taught Drama and English for fifteen years in secondary and primary schools and lectured at Latrobe University, the Institute of Catholic Education, Melbourne College of Advanced Education and the Victorian College of the Arts [School of Creative Arts].

Kate has played an active role in drama and arts education curriculum and policy development in Australia and has held leadership positions in professional associations at state, national and international levels. She was the President of NADIE (the National Association of Drama in Education) from 1989-1992. She was Drama Australia’s Director of International Liaison from 1998 -1994. She represented Australian drama educators on the board of the National Affiliation of Arts Educators [NAAE].
She was an Executive member of the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association (IDEA) since its formation in 1992, holding the positions of IDEA Vice President and Director of Projects. She was Director of IDEA ’95, the Second World Congress of Drama/Theatre and Education in Brisbane involving 1300 international theatre practitioners and drama educators from 63 countries.
She is a member of the Board of the Arena Theatre Company.
She is Chairperson of the Council of Kingswood College.

BA (Hons), Melb; Dip Ed, LaTrobe; PGC Drama, Birm, UK;. M Ed (Research) Melb; PhD, Griffith

Kate coordinates drama education subjects within the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate programs in the Faculty of Education. She is the lecturer in charge of Primary Drama, a compulsory subject in first and second years of the B Ed [Primary] course. She supervises Drama Research Projects in the BEd Primary and BTeach courses
She teaches arts education course work subjects within the M Ed program: Researching the Arts, Advanced Project Studies in the Arts and Contemporary Arts Practice and Curriculum. She currently supervises 14 MEd major thesis students and 7 PhD students.

ARC Research Grants
In 2002 Dr Kate Donelan and Associate Professor Angela O’Brien were awarded an ARC Linkage grant: 'Risky Business: A cross-disciplinary investigation of creative arts as an intervention activity for young people at risk in urban and rural Victoria' ((2002 – 2005). This longitudinal study seeks to identify effective diversionary programs for young people experiencing difficulties in their lives and to analyse the potential impact of the creative arts to assist and reconnect them with their communities and thus increase their mental health and wellbeing.
In 2004 they were awarded a VicHealth grant to investigate young people’s enacted stories and this became a pilot study for an ARC Linkage grant 'Transformative arts education partnerships: a creative approach to whole school renewal' (2005 – 2007) . This ongoing project investigates a school transformation and curriculum initiative through an arts partnership between a culturally diverse inner city secondary school, a community performing arts company and arts education researchers. It explores how the arts can offer multiple and alternative routes to academic achievement and personal well-being for disempowered and disenfranchised teenagers at school. This longitudinal study focuses on a complex ethnically diverse school research site and offers the opportunity for innovative research collaboration between students, teachers, academic researchers and the community.

Dr Kate Donelan's research interests are: drama and theatre education in school and community contexts; intercultural learning through drama and the performing arts; and the educational and social impact of the creative arts with young people at risk. She has a particular interest in ethnographic research and has investigated collaborative research models appropriate for researching the performing arts in educational and community settings.

Her recent published research focuses on drama, theatre and learning in a context of cultural pluralism and intercultural exchange. Her doctoral research - a longitudinal ethnographic study of the educational impact of an intercultural performing arts project with young people in a multicultural secondary school - has been recognised for its significant contribution to the field of drama and intercultural education. In 1996 she co-edited with Professor John O’Toole, Drama, Culture and Empowerment, a highly acclaimed book with contributions from thirty of the world's foremost theatre educators.

Refereed Journal Articles:
Donelan, K (2004) ‘Overlapping spheres and blurred spaces: Mapping Cultural Interactions in Drama and Theatre with young people’, NJ (Drama Australia Journal), Vol 28, No 1, pp. 15-33.
Bunyan, P, Moore, R and Donelan, K (2003) ‘Critical Contexts: a rationale for the inclusion of drama in the critical development of pupils from the age of 10 to the age of 12’, NJ (Drama Australia Journal), Vol 27, No 2, pp. 27-36.
Donelan K (2002) ‘Engaging with the Other: Drama and Intercultural Education’, Melbourne Studies in Education, Vol 43, No 2, November 2002, pp. 26 - 38.
Donelan K (2002) ‘Embodied Practices: Ethnography and Intercultural Drama in the Classroom’, in NJ (Drama Australia Journal) Vol 26 No 2, pp. 35-46.
Donelan, K [2000] `Sharing cultures: Vietnamese Australia Theatre Exchange’, Mask, Volume 23, Number 1.
Donelan, K (1999) ‘Towards an Intercultural Aesthetic: The Gods Project Biography’. NJ (Drama Australia Journal). Brisbane, Vol 23, No 2, pp. 65-80.
Donelan, K (1999) ‘The Drama of Ethnography’ in Miller, C and Saxton, J (eds) Drama and Theatre in Education: International Conversations, American Education Research Association and the International Drama in Education Research Institute, Victoria, BC, pp. 256-264.
Donelan, K [1998] `Another Place, Another Time', Australian Drama EducationMagazine, National Association for Drama in Education [Australia], No 4,
Donelan, K [1992] `Nothing Else gets you that close: Using Ethnographic Research to Study Drama in Education, The NADIE Journal, vol 16 , No 4
Donelan, K (1991) ‘Windows on the Drama Classroom: A collaborative ethnographic approach to research’ in Hughes, J (ed) Drama in Education: the state of the art, Educational Drama Association, NSW.

Refereed Conference Papers
O’Brien, A., Donelan, K., Martinac, K., Coulter, K. (2005) ‘Risky Business Research Findings’, Key-note Address, Risky Business Research Symposium, Melbourne, October
O’Brien. A., Donelan, K. et al (2005) ‘Report on the Risky Business Research Project’, Australia Council Conference, Backing Our Creativity, University of Melbourne, September.
Donelan, K (2004) ‘Risky Business for People at Risk’, IDEA 2004, Fifth World Congress, Ottawa Canada, July.
Donelan, K (2003) ‘Fictional Contexts for Critical Thinking in Drama’, International Federation for the Teaching of English Conference, Melbourne, July.
Donelan, K (2003) ‘Embodied Research: Ethnographic practices in drama’, International Researching Drama and Theatre in education Conference, Exeter University, UK, April.
Donelan, K ( 2003) ‘Intercultural Exchange in Theatre with Young People’, Les Polyscènes: The International Encounters of Youth Theatre, Montpellier, France, July.
Donelan, K and Pascoe, R (2002) Keynote Speech: ‘Archetypes and Heroes: influences and inheritances’, Drama Australia conference, Melbourne, October.
Donelan, K (2002) Keynote Speech: ‘The Role of Drama Education in the building of Civil Societies’, Asia-Pacific Conference on Theatre and Cultural Work in Building Civil Societies, Manila, The Philippines, September.
Donelan, K (2002) ‘Fox: Story, Drama and Archetypal Themes’, Creative Waves, UK National Drama conference, Edinburgh, April 2002;
Donelan, K (2001) ‘Dark Play and cross-cultural dialogues: researching drama/theatre in a school community’, 4th World Congress of International Drama/Theatre and Education Association, Bergen, Norway, July.
Donelan, K (2000) 'Telling Tales from the Drama Classroom: the shape of drama education research', the 10th Anniversary National Drama Conference, York University, UK.
Donelan, K (2000), 'The Shape of Drama Education in Australia', AATE Conference, Gallaudet University Washington, USA, June 2000
Donelan, K (1999) 'Drama as cross-cultural education: an ethnographic study’, International Researching Drama and Theatre in Education Conference, University of Exeter.
Donelan, K (1999) 'Theatre Training and Drama/Theatre in Educa

She has been an invited keynote speaker and presenter on drama and arts education at major national and international conferences. In her role as IDEA Director of Projects she led a number of international collaborative arts education projects; these include an investigation of the educational and social impact of theatre programs with young marginalised and disadvantaged young people. In July 2001 in Bergen, Norway she led a Special Interest Group on Drama/Theatre and Schools with international researchers, artists and educators at the World Congress of Drama/Theatre and Education.

She was the co-convenor of two recent international research conferences at The University of Melbourne: The Risky Business conference (November, 2005) and the Dialogues and Differences symposium (April, 2006).

She is currently involved in a collaborative arts-based research project: an investigation of the aesthetics of ethnographic performance.

Awards:
Dr Kate Donelan was the recipient of the inaugural Drama Australia President's Award for outstanding contribution to Australian Drama education (2003) and is a life member of Drama Victoria.
She won the Drama Victoria award for the best new Australian publication for drama and theatre studies teachers: Drama and Learning, Melbourne Studies in Education (2003). As Head of Drama she was awarded the Melbourne Education Teaching Excellence Award with her Arts Education Team (2005). Her MEd thesis: (1994) The Teacher, The Students and the Drama: Using an Ethnographic Approach to Study Three Drama Classrooms was awarded the Freda Cohen Prize by the University of Melbourne for the most meritorious thesis within the Faculty of Education.