Manjula’s expertise focus on educational leadership, early childhood policy especially on quality matters, as well as child and family diversity, and professional learning, mentoring and career development of early childhood personnel. For her contribution to the study of early childhood educational leadership, Manjula was awarded a Honoris Causa in Education by the University of Tampere, Finland. Manjula has been exploring the conceptualisation and enactment of leadership within Early Childhood settings for almost two decades.  She initiated the dialogue on theorising distributed leadership paradigm in Early Childhood settings, and this research continues to evolve through collaborations with Scandinavian researchers.

Manjula has an extensive track record of working in the Early Childhood sector in a variety of roles comprising being a classroom practitioner, a parent, a policy analyst, an advocate, a teacher educator, an academic writer and researcher. She has a deep knowledge of Early Childhood policy and practice built through teaching, research and active involvement in the sector for over three decades, including holding office in various community organisations including Early Childhood Australia and UNICEF Australia. Manjula’s continuing interests in cross-cultural research have been built through collaborations with colleagues from diverse countries especially those from Estonia, Finland, Malaysia, Norway, Singapore and South Africa. In connection with this work Manjula was appointed the Editor-in-Chief for Early Childhood Education by Bloomsbury Publishers. She is one of four international scholars who oversees the preparation of articles from around the world, for inclusion in Bloomsbury’s digital platform dedicated to Education and Childhood Studies (www.becs-bloomsbury.com).