Dr Penelope Bergen

I am a lecturer and researcher at the UNSW Canberra School of Business.

My PhD was on the development of the culture of non-Indigenous workers in remote Aboriginal communities in Central Australia. My research relates to how government policy affects workplace cultures and how those cultures then affect outcomes for communities.

I’m also interested in how modern systems of human resource governance and leadership knowledge serve teamwork and outcomes for other isolated communities or sectors, including classical music, Family Day Care, the military, the international development and aid sector, the Arctic and Antarctic, rural and remote health care, the space sector or a small team culture in the public service. How well will modern systems of human resource governance and leadership knowledge serve teamwork in far flung settings such as remote workers in Central Australia or communities isolated by climate-change-driven natural disasters? And if we have not solved the challenges around isolated living in small, dispersed settlements on earth, what can we expect to find when we send a small group to the Moon or to Mars?

I have worked in international development, media (broadcast, print and digital), the arts (classical music and creative art), health policy and the health consumer research space, with a particular focus on rural, regional and remote access.

I am a third culture kid who became a third culture adult. I am a member of the Public Service Research Group (PSRG) and the Australian Sociological Association (TASA).