Robert John Parkes, BEd (Hons), PhD, is Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies and Program Convenor of Secondary Teacher Education at The University of Newcastle, Australia. He is co-convener of the HERMES History Education Research Network; Founding editor-in-chief of the Q1 academic journal, Historical Encounters; An original core author for Public History Weekly; Founding co-convenor of the History and Education Special Interest Group within the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE); and a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the International Society for History Didactics (ISHD). Robert’s research interests include history culture, epistemic fluency, curriculum theory, and history teacher education. Robert is also a passionate martial artist, who began his martial arts training in 1980, and has teaching credentials in Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Martial Arts. He is the first, and currently only, person in the forty year history of the Bernas Estocadas system of Filipino Martial Arts to have been promoted to the rank of Agálon (Master). His leisure time is spent teaching the Filipino Martial Arts as Director of the Eskrima Academy, and studying the Afro-Brazilian martial art Capoeira.
