Emeritus Professor Roland Sussex OAM, FQA, Chevalier des Palmes Académiques
Roland (Roly) Sussex (M.A. Hons Canterbury; PhD London) is a specialist in language, communication and culture, and health communication. He was Professor of Applied Language Studies at the University of Queensland from 1989 until 2010. Before that he taught Linguistics and Russian at the University of Reading (UK) and Monash University in Melbourne, and was the foundation professor of Russian at the University of Melbourne from 1977 to 1989.
He is currently Research Professor in the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, and in the School of Languages and Cultures, at the University of Queensland. Since “retiring” he has become involved in social issues as a public intellectual.
He was chair of the Library Board of Queensland from 2009 to 2014, and then Deputy Chair (2014-2016). He was President of the Alliance Française of Brisbane (2010-2017), and is currently President of the English Speaking Union of Queensland (2018-).
Roly Sussex has been writing a weekly column on language for the Brisbane Courier-Mail since 2006. His talk-back radio program A Word in Your Ear has been broadcast every week to Queensland on ABC radio since 1997, and for the last 16 years to South Australia. His Queensland broadcasts are podcast by the ABC:
» A Word in Your Ear
» Woofties
When he is not engaged in researching and writing about language, communication, culture and health, he works on his garden and acreage, rides road bikes and mountain bikes, and indulges his passion for classical music.
He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2012, and was a made a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques by the French Government in 2017.