Murdoch University

Faculty Member, Directorate, Research & Development

Other Affiliations: The Australian National University, Australian Centre for Indigenous History
The University of Western Australia, School of Social and Cultural Studies

About

I studied at Murdoch University, Perth Australia, and have held positions at The University of Queensland, Curtin University of Technology, The Australian National University, and The University of Western Australia. I worked as a sole trader (2000-2005) developing digitally enabled initiatives to support online business for a diverse range of peak body arts organisations before returning to higher degree research in 2006. I have contributed to the development of two monographs with a Western Australian history focus (A History of Dentistry in Western Australia and Odysseus and the Golden West, both by Dr. John Yiannakis in 2009) and in 2011 founded the creative non-fiction book series Writing Life Australia. I am the ERA (Excellence in Research Australia) Submission Administrator for Murdoch University and a Research Officer for The Australian National University’s School of History ARC Linkage project Deepening Histories of Place: Exploring Indigenous Landscapes of National and International Significance. Leading up to the ERA Submission deadline set by the Australia Research Council, my role at Murdoch University (from 2011) in research data management required the development of appropriate online tools and services which linked major citation and peer review research assets, visualised research trends, calculated relative citation impact, and analysed the performance and coverage of scholarly outcomes within the context of national and international benchmarks for individual fields of research. My ongoing role at The Australian National University requires the use of applied research to develop innovative digital history delivery strategies to deepen understandings of internationally significant Australian landscapes and to report on these outcomes to the project’s industry partners. As a member of this unique interdisciplinary and industry team, I am working with leading historians in Australian Indigenous History and major collections institutions in order to produce richer interpretations of Australian landscapes. My forthcoming book, The Getting of Bookselling Wisdom, examines the literary, economic and cultural interdependence between Australian and British publishers during the twentieth century. Recent publications include ‘Is a Picture Worth 10,175 Australian Novels?’ (2010), a cultural studies analysis of technology use in literary studies, and ‘The Literary Novel and Australian Literary Cultures 1950-2008’ (2009, with Richard Nile).

While my academic proficiency is in Australian Studies, and Communication and Cultural Studies, I am also expertly fluent in HTML, Javascript, PHP, Ajax and MySQL. Over the past fifteen years I have developed online software for a number of organisations in the social services sector (including Craft Queensland, the Queensland Community Arts Network, PlayLab, QMusic, the Queensland Folk Federation, Opera North, Youth Voice, the Association of Independent Records, Artworkers Alliance, Art of Giving (Queensland State Government), the Medieval Fayre, MMMedia, the Arts Queensland Information Technology Partnership Project, the Arc Biennial, the Australian Network of Art and Health, the Dreaming Festival, and Flipside Circus) and in the tertiary sector (including the Australian Studies Centre, the Australia Research Institute, the International Auto/Biography Association, Visible Evidence, the International Australian Studies Association, the Australian Common Reader project, the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, and the Australian Public Intellectual Network). As a sole trader (2000-2005), I was accredited on the Government Information and Communications Technology Register and in 2003 won the Executive Director’s Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Contribution to the Woodford Folk Festival. In 2011 I was shortlisted for the Western Australian Geek-in-Residence fellowship award by the Australian Council for the Arts.

I have a PhD in Communication and Cultural Studies (“Places of Publication and the Australian Book Trade: A Study of Angus & Robertson’s London Office, 1938-1970”) from Murdoch University (Humanities Research Institute). My PhD was completed as part of an ARC Discovery grant at Murdoch University in a study that merged a technologically innovative analysis of bibliographic data with an interpretative history of primary resource materials. I have a Master of Arts by research in Australian Studies (“Towards Critical Cultural Foresight”) from The University of Queensland (School of English, Media Studies and Art History), a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Communication and Cultural Studies (The University of Queensland, Department of English), a Postgraduate Diploma in Australian Studies by dissertation (The University of Queensland, Australian Studies Centre) and a Certificate in Engaging Learners in Online Discussion (Open Universities Australia).

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