Michael McGrath
Research and Programs Officer

Michael’s research and development work began in Myanmar in 2015, where he produced a series of public opinion and social cohesion studies with a local NGO. Returning to Australia in 2017 to undertake a Master of Public Policy at the ANU, he shifted his academic and professional focus to the rights and wellbeing of queer folk, weaving a rainbow angle into any essay he could and picking up work with Canberra’s AIDS Action Council and AGA, a community organisation supporting intersex, trans and gender diverse people.

After graduating, he returned to Myanmar where he spent 2 years working for Kantar Public on research projects spanning topics such as earthquake preparedness, hate speech against the Rohingya and the impact of Covid-19 on child labour rates. Alongside this, he also led 2 first-of-their-kind research projects with local queer advocacy organisation &PROUD—a study on public attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people (2020) and a mental and psychosocial health needs assessment of Myanmar’s LGBTQI+ community (2021). In 2021 he took up advisory work with UNFPA and UNOPS as an LGBTQI+ inclusion specialist, sensitising both community-facing programming and internal staff capacity to better meet the needs of Myanmar’s LGBTQI+ community. He has also worked closely with another Myanmar-focussed advocacy organisation to draw attention to the experiences and resilience of Myanmar’s queer communities since the military’s brutal and illegitimate seizure of power in February 2021.

He began working with Edge Effect in January 2023 and has since relocated to Melbourne, where he is throwing multiple hobbies at the wall to see what sticks. So far this has resulted in lumpy ceramic bowls, pilate-related aches, a SCUBA license and making a fool of himself on an improv stage.