Staff Member in Profile: Dr Guinevere Gilbert

Guinevere Gilbert is a Lecturer within the School of Property Construction and Project Management at RMIT University.

Over the past 21 years she has taught project management concepts, project techniques, communication management, professional practice, the capstone course, research methods, research practice and post-disaster project management to construction and project management undergraduates and postgraduates.  Her time at RMIT has also included 12 months as Acting Program Manager of the B. App. Sc. (Project Management).  Her approach to interactive learning is evidenced by her passion for development and delivery of courses undertaken around Victoria and internationally including South Africa and Fiji.

Guinevere’s professional experience is predominantly construction based in the UK where she completed a Bachelor of Building before working on commercial, industrial and residential construction projects. Following on from this experience, she investigated graduate development in the construction industry for her PhD, and workplace psychology continues to be an area of interest. Her current research focuses on sustainable commitment to a project, identifying how commitment to a project changes over time and how it can be maintained to aid successful project completion. This includes commitment of employees, but also commitment of volunteers, for which a measurement tool is being developed. She is also collaborating with colleagues to investigate lessons learned from post-disaster projects with a focus on how stakeholders attribute blame and how organisations can implement more efficient post disaster project management practices.

Guinevere has successfully supervised 9 research projects as part of the Masters of Project Management and 1 PhD student, and currently has 3 further PhD students investigating a range of topics including the adoption of PM methods in local government, and the wellbeing of OSM employees.

In Australia she has worked on educational projects such as development of a Diploma in Project Management, and managed projects for Scouts and the Red Cross. Guinevere was a founding member of the National Association of Women in Construction, and is currently engaged in promoting project management as a career to high schools with the PM4L consortium in conjunction with Ericsson and the Melbourne Chapter of the PMI.

Author: Dr Guinevere Gilbert