CQU Melbourne International Campus staff member Tris Kerslake has gained her PhD thanks to study into 'The Role and Practice of Empire in Science Fiction: Experiments in Imagination'.

Dr Kerslake, who coordinates the STEP (student employment) program at CQU MIC, investigated the speculative literature of SF's past and future histories while questioning the continuing location of imperialism in contemporary science fiction.

Meanwhile, Tris has also been busy on the publishing front with her latest effort as a contributor to a book called 'Selected Essays on H.G. Wells', published in The Netherlands.

Tris is also contributing to production of a new 'Encyclopaedia of Themes in Science Fiction and Fantasy' to be published in California next year by Greenwood Press.

On a tangent from academic life, she is publishing a science fiction juvenile novel entitled 'Walking the Light' via Simon and Shuster of New York in 2004.

She has also been approached by two companies to publish her PhD thesis as a book.