Academy Fellow

Professor Paradies is Chair in Race Relations at Deakin university. He conducts research on the health, social and economic effects of racism as well as anti-racism theory, policy, and practice across diverse settings, including online, in workplaces, schools, universities, housing, the arts, sports and health. He also teaches and undertakes research in Indigenous knowledges and decolonisation. He has authored 220 publications, including 149 peer-reviewed articles, 21 book chapters and two monographs.

Professor Paradies has delivered 274 presentations (76 international; 178 invited presentations), including 47 guest lectures and 25 keynotes. He is an investigator on 10 current, and 50 completed, grants (11 as lead investigator, 11 ARC and 7 NHMRC grants) worth over .5 million as well as an invited reviewer for 122 journals. Prof. Paradies has assessed grants for the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council, New Zealand Health Research Council, the United States National Science Foundation, New Zealand Marsden Fund Council, Ontario Research Fund, United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Austrian Science Fund. He is on the editorial boards of Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Journal of Australian Studies and Australian Aboriginal Studies. He currently (co-) supervises nine PhDs and has supervised 13 PhD students to completion.

As of October 2021, Professor Paradies had 12,624 citations with a Google h index of 54. His work has been cited in the highest-ranking journals of several disciplines, including: Annual Review of Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Journal of Epidemiology, Journal of General Internal Medicine, PloS ONE, Social Science & Medicine, and The Lancet.

Professor Paradies has been involved in conceptualising and applying numerous innovative and high-quality research methods in Australia. These include: the first known application of cost–benefit analysis to estimate the health-related monetary impact of racism in Australia; the first use of entropy analysis to examine how racism varies geographically by levels of cultural diversity; the first Australian project applying the audit method to assess racism in the private rental market; the first Australian study to investigate the biological impacts of racism in children; and a novel statistical method for understanding the rarely studied relationship between racist attitudes among potential perpetrators and experiences of racism among target groups in Australia.

Professor Paradies has developed a range of new instruments that have been adopted at national and international levels, to measure concepts as diverse as racism, intercultural understanding, organisational cultural competence and social/emotional wellbeing. In terms of unique research foci, I have often conducted studies in important but under-studied areas, including, for example: racial socialisation, vicarious racism, intersectionality, micro-ecologies of segregation, and socio-demographic correlates of Indigenous identification transitions. In terms of evaluation, I engage in unique combinations of mixed-methods in my work. This has included, for example: longitudinal narrative interviews, focus groups, video diaries and longitudinal surveys. I have also developed novel theoretical concepts such as reflexive anti-racism, race refusal and overstructuration.

2021-2022, Measures and Mechanisms for Preventing and Addressing Racism and Racial Discrimination in the Institutions of the United Nations System Advisory Group of Experts – Member

2021-2022, Victorian Government’s Anti-Racism Taskforce – Member

2021 to current, Australian Bureau of Statistics Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Demographic Statistics Expert Advisory Group – Member

2019 to current, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Indigenous Statistical and Information Advisory Group – Chair

2021    Charles Darwin University Indigenous Alumni Award

2011    Victorian Young Tall Poppy Science Award – Australian Institute of Policy and Science

2007    National NAIDOC Awards, Scholar of the Year

1. Paradies Y. Unsettling truths: modernity, (de-)coloniality and Indigenous futures. Postcolonial Studies 2020 23(4): 438-456.
2. Elias A, Ben J, Mansouri F, Paradies Y. Racism and nationalism during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2021 44(5): 783-793.
3. Seet A, Paradies Y. Surviving the Survival Narrative Part 2: Conceptualising Whiteness-as-Utility and Internalised Racism. Journal of Sociology, in press Feb 2021.
4. Verbunt E, Luke J, Paradies Y, Bamblett M, Salamone C, Jones A, Kelaher M. Cultural determinants of health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – a narrative overview of reviews. International Journal for Equity in Health, in press July 2021.
5. Truong M, Allen D, Chan J, Paradies Y. Racism complaints in the Australian health system: an overview of existing approaches and some recommendations. Australian Health Review, in press, September 2021.