The STEM Q team has signed up Kim McConville as Senior Project Manager.

Before joining the STEM Q team, Kim was the Executive Director of Beyond Empathy, a community arts and cultural development organisation she founded in 2005 that collaborates with rural and remote communities across Australia to influence change in places considered disadvantaged.

She is skilled at designing and implementing place-based projects and cultural processes in First Nations communities to support healing with individuals and their communities.

Kim has spent three decades working with these communities as a teacher, learner, community producer, mentor, guide and friend. It is in these communities she feels most at home. Her work strives for resolute ethics, respect for cultural protocols and the self-determination of the people involved.

She has been awarded for her collaborative practices and for forging new partnerships between government, philanthropy and the community sector.

“I am excited about working in place and collaborating with priority communities across our Region,” Kim says.

“I’ve lived in the region for 30 years and I believe in the power of locally empowered community (cultural) development. I am committed to seeing country towns thrive. Along with Naomi and the STEM team, I passionately believe we need to encourage young people to stay in the country and we must do this by building opportunities for them to be the next generation of change makers and leaders.”