Maddy Sealey’s journey with ACU and Aurora

Meet Maddy, an Indigenous Student Success Officer and aspiring PhD student

Madelaine (Maddy) Sealey knows first-hand how education can help First Nations people thrive, not just survive.

A proud Wurundjeri woman mostly raised on Ngunnawal Country, Maddy has spent the better part of 20 years chipping away at her long-term goal to earn a PhD, all while raising two young children on her own.

“When I started university, I was a mature aged student, and I had two babies in nappies,” Maddy said.

“Doing my undergraduate degree sparked a passion for learning. I developed a goal that I would eventually like to do a PhD over time because I really enjoy research, and I love delving into issues faced by Indigenous people and giving our community’s perspective.”

Maddy is the second person in her family to attend and graduate university. The woman she followed, her inspirational aunty, was the one who planted the seed.

“I was inspired by my aunty who went to university as a mature aged adult, who was in her early 40s with five children,” Maddy said.

“I was living with my aunty the first time I became a single mum, and when I had my second child, and she just planted that seed.

“She’d struggled for most of her life as a single mother of three children. After remarrying, she had two more children and made the decision to go to university as a mother of five. She inspired me to go to uni and was the one who kept pushing for me to apply. When I decided to do it, it was because of her.”

Maddy has since graduated with two undergraduate degrees, in International Studies and Journalism from the University of Canberra, and completed her masters degree in International Development Studies in 2022 at the University of Melbourne.

“I was a single mum the whole way through, and while doing my masters I was working full time and raising teenagers,” Maddy said.

“I even wrote my research dissertation for my masters during the second wave of lockdowns in Melbourne, while also managing a household doing home schooling.

“It’s given me a gift in terms of my confidence and the way I look at the world, and that thirst for knowledge and understanding. I think that’s what sustained me over the last decade to keep going, and what sparked my interest in further studies in the postgraduate space.”

During her academic pursuits, Maddy has also taken up paid roles supporting Indigenous students and their engagement with tertiary studies. In her current role as Indigenous Student Success Officer at Australian Catholic University’s Melbourne Campus, she has the privilege of encouraging the next generation of First Nations students to pursue their academic goals.

“When I ended up working in this space at ACU, it was the passion for what education can do for mob and watching others going through their own journey of self-discovery,” Maddy said.

“I’ve loved working in the space and watching what education can do for others.”

With her masters degree now complete, Maddy is ready to focus on her ultimate goal, commencing a PhD, and she already has her sights on a potential location.

In early 2024, Maddy was one of eight participants on the Aurora Education Foundation’s (Aurora) US Study Tour. Maddy used the Study Tour to explore potential opportunities for pursuing her PhD in America.

“I had already set a goal for 2023 that I was going to start working on my proposal for a PhD and start looking at universities, when the Scholars Tour popped up,” Maddy said.

“My youngest had turned 18 and was just in the process of completing Year 12. I thought, why not, so I put in an application for the 2024 tour and got accepted. I was very excited to be a part of the Study Tour.”

The Study Tour lasted three weeks but Maddy knew in the first week, while visiting the University of Arizona and having the opportunity to visit the Indian Reservation of the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, that the southwest could be calling her.

“I would be eager to undertake my research in the Arizona region, given I’ve already had contact with those communities,” she said.

Maddy says that Aurora has played a pivotal role in her personal education journey.

“The work Aurora does is pretty phenomenal, and the reach they have and the impact they’re having is amazing,” Maddy said.

“Being a part of that and promoting that [experience] to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is really exciting.”

Learn more about ACU’s Indigenous Higher Education Units.