Staff Profile

photo of Prof. Alan Hayes

Professor Alan Hayes
Director, Australian Institute of Family Studies

BA(Hons) (UNSW), PhD (Macq), FAPsS, FAmPsyS

Biography

Professor Alan Hayes is the Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, taking up his appointment in September 2004. He also holds a professorial appointment at Macquarie University, Sydney.

With qualifications in Psychology, he has research and policy interests in the pathways children and their families take through life, and the role of families in supporting and sustaining development across life. The role of vulnerability and resilience in shaping developmental pathways has been a particular focus. Much of his work has focused on disadvantage, with a longstanding interest in prevention and early intervention. The impact of relationship breakdown on children is a particular interest, and the factors that impede access to opportunity continue to be a key focus.

He is currently a member of the Family Law System Reference Group, the Chief Justice's Family Law Forum and the Australian Government's Longitudinal Studies Advisory Group (LSAG). He held a Chair of Early Childhood Studies at Macquarie University, where he was also foundation Dean and Head of Division at the Australian Centre for Education Studies (ACES). He has been the chair, deputy chair or a member of four Australian Government Ministerial Advisory Councils, including the Commonwealth Child Care Advisory Council (CCCAC) (Member), the Australian Council for Children and Parenting (ACCAP) (Chair), the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SF&CS) Partnership (Deputy Chair), and the Australian Families and Children Council (AFCC) (Member). For the NSW Government, he chaired the committee that successfully established the Institute of Teachers in 2004 and was a member for several years of the NSW Child Protection Council. An Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Free University of Berlin and the Pennsylvania State University.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009 he was an Ambassador for National Families Week.

Selected recent publications

Presentations

See Staff papers and presentations