
Bachelor of Social Studies (Hons) Sydney University , PhD UNSW
Jan Breckenridge is a Professor and Head of the School of Social Sciences and the Co-Convener of the UNSW Gendered Violence Research Network, UNSW. She is also a Research Fellow of the UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute (AHRI). Jan has undertaken extensive work and research in the areas of gendered violence. Select research areas include domestic, family and sexual violence and workplace responses; economic and financial abuse; homelessness and the potential of safe at home programs for women and children affected by domestic and family violence. Jan’s research is oriented towards maximum impact in innovative social policy development, service provision and outcome measurement of effectiveness. Jan leads an evidence informed knowledge-exchange stream ‘Gendered Violence and Organisations’, which provides expert advice to government, private and third sector organisations on best practice policies and organisational response to employees and the management of customers affected by domestic and family violence, sexual assault and sexual harassment.
2019 - Dean's Award for Society Impact
2015 - UNSW Staff Excellence Award in Work, Health and Safety – GV & Work Program
2014 - Dean's Award for Research Excellence
2014 - ARC Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Research Supervision
2010 - UNSW Staff Award for Excellence in Community Engagement
Co-Convener, UNSW Gendered Violence Research Network, which brings together over 60 UNSW research affiliates and internal members, with over 1000 followers on Twitter and 1,500 external subscribers. Jan co-chaired the first significant event of the GVRN - the Inaugural Asia Pacific Conference on Gendered Violence and Violations (2015), a three day conference which brought together 330 delegates from 20 countries, with 20 keynote speeches, 80 paper presentations and 7 pre-conference master classes covering a range of themes. These themes included investigating different forms of interventions and engaging with policy and legal responses, in an effort to combine research excellence and practitioner knowledge, and to promote policy discussion with the goal of reducing and mitigating the harmful effects of gendered violence.
Select Current and Recent Research Projects
Gendered Violence & Organisations Program (established 2015) – Specialist policy advice, development and provision of innovative and tailored training and eLearning for government, private and third-sector organisations: https://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/research/gendered-violence-research-network/gendered-violence-work/
This project built on two research projects:
The GV & Work Program has received overwhelmingly positive evaluations of our development of best practice awareness and response training delivered to over 40 organisations. A current suite of e-learning modules is available in the areas of awareness and response to DFV (customers and employees), Sexual assault and sexual harassment, including University campuses.
Jan is a member of a number of National and International Advisory Groups, Networks and Centres. Select Examples include:
My Research Supervision
My Teaching
Areas of HDR supervision:
Trauma, domestic and sexual violence, gender, child abuse and child protection, welfare intervention and practice, qualitative research methodology
Current HDR supervision:
Recent HDR completions: