Dr Joanne Pyke PhD

Dr Joanne Pyke is:

• Director for the School for the Visitor Economy
• Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities (ISILC).
• Chapter Director for the Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE)
• Policy committee member, Victorian Tourism Industry Council (VTIC)
• Member, Tourism and Travel Research Association (TTRA)
• Recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence in Research and Research Training (2013) (Research Team)
• Recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Doctoral Scholarship, 2006–09
• Discipline Group Leader (tourism, hospitality, music and events), College of Business (2016-17)
• Coordinator, Master of Tourism and Destination Management, 2017-18.

In October 2018, Joanne was appointed as Director, School for the Visitor Economy. The School is a Vice-Chancellor’s initiative designed to reinvigorate tourism, hospitality and events training, education and research as well as to build pathways across disciplines to support student employment pathways within Australia’s visitor economy as one of the fastest growing industrial sectors.

Joanne was awarded her PhD in 2010 by Victoria University and was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Community, Ethnicity and Policy Alternatives (ICEPA). She has since been employed in the Tourism and Events Research Group and was Discipline Group Leader for Tourism, Hospitality, Music and Events from 2016–18. 

Her work has focused on sustainable tourism, diversity and inclusion, community wellbeing and gender equity. Her most recent work has been on destination resilience and the impacts of social disruption and climate change on the tourism industry.

Joanne has been awarded research funding from diverse government and philanthropic funding agencies including the Australian Research Council, the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust, the Australia China Council, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the Department of Land, Water and Planning amongst others.

Since 2010, she has published 15 peer review academic publications, 13 technical reports for government funding agencies, and is a regular contributor to media articles in mainstream and academic publications.

Joanne has a career spanning higher education, state government and the not-for-profit sector and was formerly the Managing Director of Affirmative Action in Training Inc., an advisory and training organisation established to promote gender equity and diversity in non-traditional employment and training. Joanne was also a Lecturer in Leisure Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney and a policy and planning officer with the Victorian Department of Sport and Recreation.