Jo Medlin
President, Australian Council for Adult Literacy (ACAL)

Jo has been involved in adult literacy and numeracy for three decades. She is President of the Australian Council for Adult Literacy (ACAL), and a member of both the Reading Writing Hotline Steering Committee and the National Foundation Skills Advisory Group. Her current work includes teaching at university, delivering professional development, and developing curriculum, frameworks and resources to support learning.

With a focus on literacy demands in the community, Jo advocates for plain language and reader-friendly approaches to communicating written information. In 2021 and 2022 she consulted and taught on the SBS-TV series Lost for Words seasons 1 & 2, which raised public awareness of adult literacy in Australia and highlighted the effectiveness of tailoring teaching to individual needs.

Jo loves to read and her passion for adult literacy is based on a belief that the world would be a better place if we could all put up our feet, read a good book, and escape into another world for a while.