Dr Lee Partridge is an adjunct Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Development at UWA and Notre Dame University. During her career as an academic developer in higher education she has made a significant contribution to the development of early career academics as teachers and to the quality of higher education more generally. Her academic and research interests include the development of early career academics, the student experience and undergraduate research. She was awarded two institutional awards for teaching excellence, two national awards for programs that enhance learning, and a HERDSA Fellowship. In 2011, she was awarded a UWA Teaching Award in recognition of her significant contribution in academic development.

Lee Partridge is actively involved in communities of scholars both within Australian and overseas. In 2014 she was chosen to participate in an international research project examining the mentoring of undergraduate research. She is a member of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University (North Carolina) and other scholarly societies, having served as an executive committee member in the Asia Pacific Forum of Academic Integrity (2009-2012). Evidence of Lee’s strong contributor to HERDSA is the many years served on the WA HERDSA committee and as an executive committee member for HERDSA (2013-2018). Since 2019 she has been the HERDSA Fellowships Officer serving both as an administrator and a mentor, successfully coaching and encouraging many HERDSA Fellows through the program. She has taken a leading role in developing the very successful SOLT modules and in promoting the uptake of HERDSA fellowships.

Lee was also an inaugural member of the HERDSA New Scholars portfolio, assisting to conceptualise and facilitate well-received, scholarship of teaching and learning workshops. Her professional generosity led to her being instrumental in the design of the HERDSA SoTL modules. Lee crafted learning modules that were informed by her wealth of experience and expertise in supporting those new to higher education in a variety of Western Australian universities. Her passion for, and expertise in, learning and teaching, drew her to design authentic workshops while in the Professional Learning Portfolio HERDSA Executive.

Lee’s ability to coach and mentor higher education colleagues saw her revitalise, publicise and broadly promote the HERDSA Fellowship Scheme. At HERDSA’s Annual conferences Lee regularly provides a forum to inform members about HERDSA’s fellowships and to encourage and support individual applications for HERDSA Fellowships. Lee has supported a significant number of the HERDSA Executive to undertake the program and energised members to use the  fellowship to reflect on their practice. As a mentor, Lee is supportive, compassionate, and encouraging for both new scholars and those transitioning from the disciplines to SoTL, qualities that contribute to professional capacity building of others. Lee continues to build on the program’s strengths, ensuring engagement with the scholarly literature, deep reflection, evidenced practice, and rigorous assessment and moderation of practices. Fellows across Australasia value meeting and continuing to learn with each other through the annual Fellows dinners Lee organises, workshops she facilitates, and connections she supports them to make.

Lee is a generous and consistent contributor to higher education through her adjunct roles, mentoring applicants for teaching awards and academic development and higher education consultancies. In all of her activities Lee is an enabler of others encouraging them to ultimately become agents of their own success in SOTL and in delivering positive educational experiences for their students. Lee is also an active member of Rotary and other service and not-for-profit organisations to support social justice, refugee and evaluation of programs.