Associate Professor Michael Nagel’s research and teaching interests extend across a number of areas but focus primarily on human development and the psychology of learning. His PhD research encompassed an international project that looked at the learning experiences of Australian and Canadian teenagers.

Prior to his arrival at UniSC, Dr Nagel spent time in the United States researching neurological development in children, with a particular interest in early and adolescent development and areas related to a sexually dimorphic brain. Dr Nagel has authored twenty books focusing broadly on aspects of educational psychology and child development. His books are housed and used by students in libraries across more than 40 countries and in numerous universities including, but not limited to, University of California at Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, The Washington Library of Congress, University College London, Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University.

Aside from his teaching and research activity at the University, Dr Nagel has done more than 100 keynote addresses and has also conducted workshops and seminars for teachers and parents at over 300 schools in Australia and abroad. He was selected by the Australian Middle Years of Schooling to be their national travelling scholar in 2012 and has been a regular presenter for Generation Next which focuses on adolescent health and well-being. Finally, Dr Nagel has won a number of awards for linking theory with the everyday realities of raising and working with children, has appeared on 'Sunrise', 'A Current Affair', 'The Project' and New Zealand TV's Breakfast program and is a feature writer for the First Five Years Online Parenting Forum along with writing for Child and Jigsaw series of magazines offering parenting advice to more than one million Australian readers.