Claudia is interested in exploring children and young people’s thinking and leadership. For many years she has designed and implemented innovative programs for consulting with children and young people from diverse backgrounds in varied settings.

Her PhD research ‘Understanding the next generation of leaders: An exploratory study of constructions of leadership during childhood’ under the supervision of Professor Jon Billsberry (University of Wollongong) and Dr John Molineux (Deakin University) and external advisor Honorary Professor Susan Kay Wright - Chair of Arts Education Melbourne Graduate School of Education The University of Melbourne, investigated children’s thinking of leaders, specifically, children’s implicit representations of leaders (Implicit Leadership Theories ILTs), the ideas and expectations that children hold about the traits, behaviours, and functions of leaders.

This study involved 251 children between 5-12 years old from a primary school in Melbourne. This research was conducted with permission from the Department of Education and Training Victoria. 

“Claudia’s PhD is an extraordinary piece of work. Not only does it answer a fundamental research question – how do children’s conceptualisations of leadership develop? – it does so in an ambitious way by listening to more than 250 children’s definitions of leadership. Just negotiating the various ethics clearances and permission processes from all the stakeholders was probably worth a PhD in itself, but the real achievement was discovering that children’s leadership conceptualisations do not form through a sequence of steps as previously thought. Instead, they can form more organically through wave surges depending on environmental stimuli and not necessarily in sequence or separately. I applaud how Claudia approached the topic with an open mind, gathered tremendous data, and then let that data drive conclusions. It’s a compelling piece of work from a tremendous emerging researcher.” 
-Senior Professor Jon Billsberry, Principal Supervisor 

“Dr Claudia Escobar has made an outstanding contribution to knowledge about the way children develop their understanding of leadership in society. Her passion and persistence in this project has been highly commended by examiners of her thesis, and her work will inform future thinking around Leadership and Child development, plus lead to new approaches in developing leadership practices within children and adults.” 
-Dr John Molineux, Secondary Supervisor  

Publications:
International Peer-Reviewed Journals
Escobar Vega, C., Billsberry, J., Molineux, J., & Lowe, K. B. (in press). The development of implicit leadership theories during childhood: A reconceptualization through the lens of overlapping waves theory. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000484

Billsberry, J., Escobar Vega, C., & Molineux, J. (2019). Think of the children: Leader development at the edge of tomorrow. Journal of Management & Organization, 1-4. doi:10.1017/jmo.2019.10

Saxon, L., Bromfield, S., Leow-Taylor, S.H., Escobar Vega, C., Ber, M., D LaMontagne, A., Martin, A.J., Mohebbi, M., Nielsen, K., Reavley, N.J., Walker, A., Conway, A., de Silva, A., Memish, K., Rossetto, A., Tanewski, G., Noblet, A. (2022). Counting on U training to enhance trusting relationships and mental health literacy among business advisors: protocol for a randomised controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry 22, 400. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-04034-7

Book chapters based on original research
Escobar Vega, C., Triana, C,. Pedraza, L.G (2007). Guide to Theatre Auditoriums Management (Manual de Gestión para Salas de Teatro). Ministry of Culture – FJC University, ISBN 978-958-8250-35-9, Bogota, Colombia.
Contribution: Author of Chapter III: Towards a national legislation for theatre auditoriums. Pp. 83-110.

International refereed conference paper
Escobar Vega, C., Billsberry, J., & Molineux, J. (2020). The emergence of implicit
leadership theories in children: An empirical study.
Conference: 81st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (virtual)

Escobar Vega, C., Billsberry, J., & Molineux, J. (2020). The Pre-Context of Leader Development: An Empirical Study of the Emergence of Implicit Leadership Theories in Children.
Conference: 5th Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Leadership Symposium, Mykonos, Greece.

Escobar Vega, C., Billsberry, J., & Molineux, J. (2018). On the Implicit Leadership Theories of Children.
Conference: Australian & New Zealand Academy of Management ANZAM 2018, Auckland, New Zealand.

Escobar Vega, C., Rentschler, R,. Hopwood, J., Estay, T. (2013). At the Heart of the Arts: How Multicultural Festivals Create Social Inclusion, Multicultural Arts Victoria [online], refereed conference paper.
Conference: International Conference on Arts and Cultural Management AIMAC 2013, Bogota, Colombia.

Local non-refereed conference papers
Escobar Vega, C., (2012). Playing Dead: Making theatre with children from here about children from there, non-refereed conference paper.
Conference: The 7arakat Conference: Theatre, Cultural Diversity and Inclusion 2012, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Escobar Vega, C., (2011). Can we speak?, non-refereed conference paper.
Conference: Human Rights Arts and Film Festival 2011, Melbourne, Australia 

Recent professional research reports
Escobar Vega, C., Leiva, J. (2020) Who is going to look this way? A snapshot of contemporary artists in Melbourne towards the 2020s
EL TARRO

City of Melbourne, ArtPlay (2017). Consulting with Children. Contributing author.

Rentschler, R., Bridson, K., Evans J. (2015). Stats and Stories: The Impact of the Arts in Regional Australia, Regional Arts Australia and Deakin University [On-line], http://regionalarts.com.au/, Funded by Regional Arts Australia and the
Australia Council for the Arts.