Dr Prerna Bakshi
Adjunct Lecturer - School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Email: pbakshi2@une.edu.au
Biography
Dr Prerna Bakshi is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work bridges the fields of sociolinguistics, social psychology, educational and political sociology. Her doctoral work in Linguistics from the University of New England (Australia) involved research into language-in-education policy, politics, and neoliberalism. Her research focuses on social and political dimensions of language in educational, organisational, and social settings, and how linguistic ideologies and practices can affect institutions and social relations.
Dr Bakshi has held academic positions at universities across Hong Kong and mainland China. While she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Education University of Hong Kong and Lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), she taught English for Academic Purposes (Reading and Writing), the English Bridging Program, English for Business Communication and English for Science and Engineering Communication. She was awarded competitive research funding including the Shenzhen Pengcheng Peacock Plan. She currently serves on the editorial board of The Qualitative Report, a Scopus-indexed, peer-reviewed journal.
Beyond her university appointments, Dr Bakshi has extensive experience in applied language work. She trained senior Australian government bureaucrats preparing for diplomatic postings at the Canberra Institute of Technology and worked for nearly a decade as a professional interpreter in legal, healthcare, and community settings. She currently teaches adult education and TESOL in Tasmania.
Dr Bakshi is a two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet, whose work has been published in over 100 literary journals, magazines, anthologies, and newspapers; her collection Burnt Rotis, With Love was published in 2016. Her research work is increasingly focused on how the use of creative approaches like poetic inquiry and arts-based research can transform understanding and foster communication in professional, academic, and cross-cultural settings.
