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Bridget Griffen-Foley Headshot

Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley

Director

I am an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. My earliest two books, The House of Packer: The Making of a Media Empire (Allen & Unwin, 1999) and Sir Frank Packer (HarperCollins, 2000), constituted the first historical accounts of one of Australia's dominant media empires. Party Games: Australian Politicians and the Media from War to Dismissal (Text Publishing, 2003) explored the nature of the relationship between Australian media companies, their proprietors, and politicians and political parties. Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio was published by UNSW Press in November 2009. I am now working on producing and editing A Companion to the Australian Media. I teach an MA Modern History unit, MHPG915 Bulletin to Big Brother: The Media in Australia since 1880. I serve on the editorial boards of Media International AustraliaMedia History and the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and also administer the Australian Media History database and listserv

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Murray Goot Headshot

Professor Murray Goot

Deputy Director

I am an ARC Australian Professorial Fellow in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. My work focuses on media history and Australian politics. I was a pioneer of radio history, the history of newspaper circulation, and the early history of market research. In more recent years my work has covered the history of talkback radio, public opinion, and political campaigning. My most recent book isDivided Nation? Indigenous Affairs and the Imagined Public (Melbourne University Press, 2007), co-authored with Tim Rowse.

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Full Members

Harvey Broadbent

Harvey Broadbent

I bring to the Centre for Media History the experience of parallel career interests and track record in both media and academic research and writing. I have had long experience as a television and radio practitioner in program production, writing for television and radio and as an executive producer (especially with the ABC) as well as print media. I combine this with academic research in Middle Eastern and Ottoman history, First World War and social history research and authorship of two military history books. I am now, as Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations, managing the Gallipoli Centenary Turkish Archives Research Project, recently awarded five years ARC funding. My interest in the Centre is be focused on the multiple media representation of historical themes, events and ideas both through the media adaptation of pure research and utilisation of techniques such as oral history and recreation of historical contexts. A further focus of interest is the presentation of war in the media. Most notable recent work includes historical consultancy and main writing credits for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's innovative and interactive website Gallipoli, The First Day. This project won the AFC's Screen Innovation Award for 2009.

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Tanya Evans

Dr Tanya Evans


I am a Macquarie University Research Fellow and I work on the history of the family, sexuality, gender and poverty in Australia and Britain from the eighteenth century through to the present. My publications include Unfortunate Objects: Lone Mothers in Eighteenth-Century London and I have two forthcoming books on the history of motherhood with Oxford University Press. I am also curating an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney on 'Family Life in Colonial New South Wales' which will open in 2013. I have acted as a consultant for numerous television production companies. I was a consultant and interviewee for a documentary based on the eighteenth-century London Foundling Hospital made by RDF Media and broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 in 2003 and for a Granada documentary on Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick in 2008. In recent years I have acted as an historical consultant for Testimony Films, Ricochet, Black Diamond and the BBC all producing programmes on the history of the family in Britain. I am working as a consultant for Artemis, based in Perth, and I appeared as 'expert talent' in the third Australian series of Who Do You Think You Are? which was shortlisted for a Logie award. I am committed to the need for academic historians to engage with a wide variety of sources, print, visual and material, and to contribute to the high-quality representation of history in the media.
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Virginia Madsen

Dr Virginia Madsen


I am a lecturer in Media at Macquarie University. My research interests span contemporary and historical aspects of radio and audio performance (public broadcasting in particular), auditory culture, audio experimentation and documentary expression. I am also an established radio producer with a large body of documentary and performance work broadcast on the ABC and internationally. My first program for the ABC, Catching the Ether, explored the early years of commercial radio in Australia. From 2002-2005, I was a Vice Chancellor's Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of NSW. I have published on numerous aspects of sound and radio including on public broadcasting history and radio for Southern Review and The Radio Journal. An essay charting a history of experimentation in Australian radio appeared in the book, Restless Ears (ed. Gail Priest, UNSW Press, 2008) and my writing on the history of radio documentary in public broadcasting is included in (Ed). Andrew Crisell's reference work, Radio (Routledge, 2008). Currently I am writing on the history and impacts of 'podcasting', as well as a book exploring one of international public broadcasting's most distinctive forms of communication and revelation: the radio documentary or feature.

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Associate Members

Michelle Arrow Headshot

Dr Michelle Arrow

BA (Hons), PhD (Syd)

Michelle is a cultural historian whose research focuses on the intersections between history and popular culture. She has written extensively on the history of Australian popular culture and the representation of history in popular culture, especially on television.

Michelle's most recent book, Friday on Our Minds: Popular Culture since 1945 (2009) was shortlisted for the 2010 NSW Premier's Australian History Prize, and she was awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation for her teaching in 2010. Since 2008, she has served as one of the five members of the advisory panel for the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History. Michelle is a founding editor of the Journal of Popular Television and exhibition reviews editor of History Australia.

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CMH - Chelsea Barnett

Chelsea Barnett

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. My research is focused on Australian television in the 1950s and 1960s and its construction and reflection of gender identity and relations. I am primarily interested in the production of gender identity and the ways 'masculinity' and 'femininity' are constructed and lived; popular culture, with its variety of forms and easy accessibility, provides a fascinating base from which to explore how it is gender norms are propagated and reinforced. I also have a BA (Hons) from Macquarie, for which I researched the representation of masculinity in Man, a men's magazine, in post-Second World War Australia.

 

Maree Delofski

Dr Maree Delofski

I am a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies.  My work focuses on documentary media - history, theory and production. As a screen writer/director I have explored the ways documentary techniques can be brought to bear on the process of representing history and memory. This is exemplified in the award winning documentary The Trouble with Merle (2002), a major documentary film essay about the Hollywood star Merle Oberon that explores identity politics across cultures. Another award winning research project has been the feature length documentary essay film, Tanaka-san Will Not Do Callisthenics (2008). The film, an exploration of non-conformity, interrogates documentary modes of representing the past in the context of a present tense relationship between director and subject. I am currently researching ways of representing performances of vernacular music on screen.

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Bruce Dennett

Bruce Dennett

I have been a teacher for more than thirty years. I am currently working part-time on a PhD in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. The focus of my research is the genesis of our cinematic images of Indigenous Australia, with a primary focus on films from the silent era. My main areas of interest are film and history, Australian and American history and historiography.

I have a strong background in education and am the author and co-author of six high school history textbooks, in ancient history, modern history and Aboriginal history. I have won two Premier's History Prizes. The first saw me visit the United States in 2000 where I delivered a paper at the Film and History League Conference on 'The US Presidency on Film as seen from Down Under' and interviewed the prominent American film and history scholar Robert Toplin. A transcript of the interview was published in the Film and History Journal. On the same trip I talked my way past the Secret Service and gained a twenty minute one on one interview with former US President Jimmy Carter. In 2005 I won a second Premier's Prize, this time in military history, and an article based on my research about the circumstances of the Gallipoli Landing will be published this year by the Australian War Memorial. In addition to teaching at high school full time, I was part of the NSW Modern History Syllabus Writing Committee; I am the Supervisor of Marking for History Extension in the HSC and work on a casual basis in the Department of Modern History.

Peter Doyle

Dr Peter Doyle

I am a lecturer in the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies. My recent publications include Crooks Like Us (HHT: 2009) and City of Shadows (HHT: 2005). I am also the author of a series of crime novels set in Sydney in the 1940s, 50s and 60s (Get Rich Quick, Amaze Your Friends, and The Devil's Jump). I am the recipient of Ned Kelly Awards for Best First Crime Novel (for Get Rich Quick), Best Novel (for Amaze Your Friends) and in 2010 received a Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award. I also research and write about Australian popular music history, which, along with my research into early Australian forensic photography and criminal history, leads me to a deep and continuing immersion in early-mid twentieth century Australian newspaper, magazine and book publishing. I am also closely involved with writings by and about police and policing over that same period. I am currently a Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery Project, 'Popular Music and Cultural Memory' in which my particular focus is on agenda-setting and canon-formation by writers, directors, researchers, journalists and archivists working in the area of popular music history.

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Sofia Eriksson

Dr Sofia Eriksson

I have just received my PhD from Macquarie University, working on British travel writing on colonial Australia. I hold a Masters degree in Modern History from University College London, and a BA in History and Philosophy from Lund University in Sweden. My research interests revolve around discourse and power in the context of the British Empire in general and settler colonialism in particular, the history of travel and tourism, gender history as well as history and theory.

 

Sandey Fitzgerald

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. My thesis is on spectatorship. As well as a BA (Hons) majoring in Politics and Sociology, I also have a degree in Theatre Production from the National Institute of Dramatic Art. My interests range across a broad field and include the relationships between theatre and politics, issues of representation (including representation through costume), theories of theatre, and the use of theatre as a metaphor for political and social life. I have worked in theatre in a number of capacities, and was involved in pioneering work in the theatre in education area. I have a passion for facilitating learning and currently convene a number of Open University Australia courses for Macquarie University in both Politics and Sociology.

Elisabeth Gould

Liz Gould

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. I am writing a dissertation on the history of 'talkback' radio in Australia, extending from the 1960s through to the present day. My historical research on radio focuses on programming, politics, audiences, broadcasting regulation and policy. I bring to the Centre an interest in talk radio in the 1960s and 1970s as well as an interest in oral history research. Most recently, I presented a paper at The Radio Conference: A Transnational Forum in Lincoln, UK, on the history of the talkback radio audience.

 

Deborah Groarke

Deborah Groarke

I have worked as a radio journalist for commercial radio stations and as an online news editor. I currently maintain links with the industry through the making of radio documentaries for the ABC and freelance reporting assignments. I am also a PhD candidate in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie, and my thesis examines changes in the way state and territory elections have been covered by the broadcast and print news media over time. My research interests revolve around the relationship between the media and politics, state and territory policymaking, political history and history of the media.

Kyle Harvey

Kyle Harvey

I am an Associate Lecturer and PhD student in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. My research focuses on public opinion and social movements in the United States in the 1980s, specifically the public response to the threat of nuclear war during this era of the Cold War. Popular media, including film and television news, played a significant part in the interpretation and reaction to this threat. A graduate of the University of Newcastle, I have also written on the relationship between film and politics in the United States with respect to Vietnam veterans. I bring to the Centre a great interest in the impact of popular media in political, social and cultural contexts, as well as a passion for recent American history.

Madeleine Hastie

Madeleine Hastie

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. My thesis is on the history of commercial television in Sydney. I completed my BA (Hons) at the University of NSW writing on the history of the Australian Services Nurses' National Memorial (Anzac Parade) and the politics of recognition, examining the relationship between history, war, memory and commemoration.  I also completed a Dip Ed in High School history teaching at UNSW and studied TV presenting for one year at NIDA. My research interests are wide and varied. I'm passionate about military and social history, commemoration, history and memory, documentary and oral history, post-war popular culture, and of course, the history of print, radio, TV journalism and current affairs

Noelle Janaczewska

Noëlle Janaczewska

Noëlle is a multi-award winning writer of plays, performance texts, monologues, poetry, essays, gallery and on-line explorations, and radio scripts. Her work has been performed, broadcast and published throughout Australia and overseas. She has received 5 AWGIE (Australian Writers' Guild) Awards for radio writing across drama and non-fiction. Recent productions include: Random Red (2011) and Weeds Etc (2010) for ABC Radio National, Eyewitness Blues for the BBC and The Hannah First Collection, 1919-1949 for the Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. A graduate of Oxford University (B A Honours), London's LSE (Masters) and UTS (DCA), Noëlle is a PhD student in the Department of Modern History at Macquarie University. Find out more about her work, and read excerpts at http://noelle-janaczewska.com

Mandy Kretzschmar

Mandy Kretzschmar

I am jointly enrolled as a PhD student at Macquarie University and the University of Leipzig, Germany, from which I graduated with a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies, Theatre Studies and American Literature in 2005. My thesis is concerned with the construction and representation of the European person from an Australian media perspective, comparing the 1920s and 1960s with regard to Australia's immigration policy. I bring to the Centre a great interest in how different social and ethnic groups are represented in the printed press and film as well as a passion for media history in general. As a DAAD scholarship holder, I studied film history at the University of Georgia, U.S.A. For my master thesis, I wrote on: The representation of women in films made in the German Democratic Republic during the 1960s and 1970s. In 2003, I also completed an internship at a local TV production company to gain an insight into the industry. I have published on Australian racial theory and its discussion within the printed media.

Justine Llyod

Dr Justine Lloyd

I am a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology. I am currently working on a set of projects which build on feminist critiques of the public sphere and seek to develop innovative, historically informed ways of looking at contemporary media forms. My research uses audio archives, policy documents and interviews to map cultural histories of media. My current project, being developed as a monograph, provides the first comparative history of women's public service radio programming in Canada and Australia via correspondence and audience research, scripts and listeners' letters.

I am a member of the ARC's Cultural Research Network, and through this framework have been developing an interdisciplinary, collaborative project on the cultural literacies and technologies of 'listening'.

Full Profile  | Publications

Kathryn Millard

Professor Kathryn Millard

I am a Professor in the Department of Media, a writer and filmmaker. Much of my film work to date has engaged with the nature of autobiographical and collective memory and the representation of history and memory on film. A preoccupation with the insights and textures that can be gleaned from visual sources--such as archival film and photographs--underlies my body of work. My award-winning films include the features Travelling Light (2003) Parklands (2003) and the documentary Light Years (1991)--about the life and work of photographer, Olive Cotton. I have also written essays on topics including colour and memory, screen history, screenwriting, photography and   biography for print and radio. I am currently completing an essay film--The Boot Cake--about my quest to find the ghosts and global reincarnations of Charlie Chaplin's Tramp. Other current research projects include Countering the Script Gurus--a look at the blurring of the screenwriting industries and the self-help movement--and an exploration of non-fiction film and video forms in the era of the remix. Over the last twenty five years, my work has attracted significant support from film and arts funding bodies including the Australian Film Commission, the NSW Film and Television Office and the South Australian Film Corporation.

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Tom Murray

Tom Murray

I am a film-maker, writer and broadcaster. A graduate in Politics and Geography from the University of Sydney, I have written and produced social history documentaries in Central Australia, East Indonesia, and Arnhem Land. My debut documentary film Dhakiyarr vs the King won the 2004 NSW Premier's History Award and selection for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and my debut novel Fishing Secrets was short-listed for the Vogel-Australian Literary Award 2005. My 2008 film In My Father's Country, an observational documentary concerning a remote Arnhem Land indigenous community, won the Australian Directors Guild Award for Best Feature Documentary as well as selection for many international festivals. I am currently working on a Feature documentary in Sydney and completing my Macquarie University PhD submission.

David Myton

David Myton

I have been a journalist for more than 30 years and currently work as Manager Vice-Chancellor's Communications at Macquarie University. Previous positions include Editor APN Educational Media as well as editing, sub-editing and writing positions on papers including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Yorkshire Post, The Yorkshire Evening Post and Yorkshire Evening Press. I have a BA from Deakin University and a BA Hons (First Class) in Modern History from Macquarie University. I am now a PhD candidate in the Macquarie Institute for Innovation where I am researching the impact of new technologies on western newspapers.

Gaynor Nichols

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology with a particular interest in the production of reality television. Over the last ten years, reality programming has come to dominate the international television industry both in terms of scale and reach.  In Australia, one of the highest rating programs since 2000 has been MasterChef which throughout its three series has had significant influence on Australian food culture.  Through an extensive ethnographic study of the production of MasterChef the aim of my research is to provide the first account of reality television from a production perspective.  The project thus provides a significant contribution to the field of media sociology which is predominately focussed on consumption studies

Don Perlgut

Don Perlgut

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies, with a thesis on film and television distribution in Australia and a particular focus on audience reception: what makes a certain film popular and why?  How and why does Australian reception differ from the USA and other countries?  I originally trained as a town planner, and have extensive experience in adult education, management, marketing, educational television and new media.  I worked for ABC Television for more than ten years in a series of management and senior programming roles, and have also worked for the Australian Institute of Management, ICE Interactive and as a Lecturer at the University of New England, Armidale.  Since 2003, I have been the CEO of the Rural Health Education Foundation, which develops, distributes and broadcasts educational television programs for rural and remote health professionals and communities, including a large number appearing on SBS TV and National Indigenous TV. I have been the film critic for the Australian Jewish News for many years, and am a member of the Film Critics' Circle of Australia.

Don's blog

John Potts

Associate Professor John Potts

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies. I am the author of A History of Charisma (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Radio in Australia (UNSW Press, 1989). I have also published articles on radio history, art history, cultural history, and contemporary media culture. My other books are Culture and Technology (co-authored with Andrew Murphie, Palgrave, 2003) and Technologies of Magic (co-edited with Edward Scheer, Power, 2006). My research interests include radio and audio arts history, and intellectual history. My next book is  After the Event: New Perspectives on Art History, co-edited with Charles Merewether (Manchester University Press, 2010).

Full Profile | Publications

Tom Roberts

Tom D.C. Roberts

I am currently a PhD candidate with the Department of Modern History at Macquarie University researching the life and legacy of Sir Keith Murdoch. I hold Masters degrees from Cambridge University (in Social and Political Sciences) and the University of Westminster (in Communications). Pursuing a keen interest in politics, the media and biography, my career to date includes roles with the British Press Complaints Commission and collaboration on various book projects, most particularly with the political journalists and broadcasters Peter Oborne and Adam Boulton. I presently serve as the Administrator for the Centre for Media History.

Dr Shireleene Robinson

Dr Shirleene Robinson 

I am a Macquarie University Vice Chancellor's Innovation Fellow and my research interests revolve around sexuality and race in Australian history. My major publications include Something like Slavery? Queensland's Aboriginal child workers, 1842-1945, the edited collection Homophobia: An Australian History and the co-edited collections Crime Over Time: Temporal Perspectives on Crime and Punishment in Australia and The 1960s in Australia: People, Power and Politics.

My current research revolves around gay and lesbian community formation in the twentieth century and the HIV/AIDS epidemic and I am particularly interested in the role the Australian gay and lesbian press has played in the community-building process. I am also interested in the way that the mainstream media has portrayed gay and lesbian topics. My publications relating to gay and lesbian media history include articles on the history of the gay and lesbian press in Queensland, the use of gay and lesbian media as a mechanism for challenging homophobia and work on HIV/AIDS and the gay press. I am also interested in connections between Australian gay and lesbian media and international gay and lesbian media.

Dr Hsu-Ming Teo

Dr Hsu-Ming Teo

I am a senior lecturer and cultural historian in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations. My research interests lie primarily in the history of Orientalism and popular culture, particular mass-market fiction, film, and travel literature, and the culture of popular romance. My publications include Desert Passions: Orientalism and Romance Novels (2012) and Cultural History in Australia (co-edited with Richard White, 2003), as well as a range of academic articles and book chapters on Orientalism, fiction, film, and the history of travel and tourism. I am currently editing a book on the popular culture of romantic love in Australia. I am an editorial board member of the Journal of Australian Studies, Journal of Popular Romance Studies, and the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture.  

I am also a novelist. My first novel Love and Vertigo (2000) won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award and was short-listed for the inaugural Tasmania Pacific Region Literary Prize and the Dobbie Award for women's fiction. My second novel, Behind the Moon, was published in Australia in 2005 and in the USA in 2007. It was shortlisted for one of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards in 2006. I am working on my third novel. I was on the New South Wales Premier's History and Literature Committee in 2004, and was one of the judges of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards in 2007. Since 2007 I have served as a member of the Man Asian Literary Prize advisory panel and I judged the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize together with Homi Bhabha and Monica Ali.

Margaret Van Heekeren

Margaret Van Heekeren

I am a Lecturer in Journalism at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst and a PhD student in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, researching the dissemination of New Idealist philosophy in Australian print and radio media from 1890 to 1950. I have published research in the areas of nineteenth-century Australian print media history and online news. In 2007 I convened the Australian Media Traditions conference at CSU, Bathurst. Prior to my academic career I worked as a journalist in television, radio and print media and maintain industry contact. I contributed to the inaugural Australian Press Council State of the Print News Media in 2006 and the 2007 update.

Full Profile

Can Yalcinkaya

Can Yalcinkaya

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies. My research is concerned with the modes of melancholy and excess in Turkish film and and popular music. I have an interest in cultural theory, cultural history, genres in cinema, humour and comics studies. I have published a number of refereed and non-refereed articles on humour, comics, and film in Turkish language periodicals and books as well as academic journals. I also edited a journal of comics studies called Yeni Seruven (New Adventure). I worked as a tutor and a lecturer in the Department of Media and as a translator for the Gallipoli Centenary Turkish Archives Research Project (pdf), managed by Harvey Broadbent. I was also a voluntary contributor to the Turkish Language program at SBS Radio between 2007 and 2009. I am currently in the last year of my candidature.

Jan Zwar

Jan Zwar

I am interested in the role of economics on cultural institutions and structures, and on the circulation of ideas more generally. My PhD, due for completion in late 2011, is about 'Cultural Value and Books in Public Debate in Australia 2003-2008'. It examines the structure of the Australian publishing industry and narrative nonfiction reading patterns in relation to the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and debate about Australia's policies towards asylum seekers. The PhD is cross-disciplinary between the departments of Economics and English at Macquarie University. I also have a Masters degree in International Relations from Macquarie University and a Graduate Diploma in Communications from the University of Canberra. In the 1990s I worked as a public servant on film, TV, and pay TV policy issues for the Department of Industry, and then joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a multimedia producer, working with ABC staff in TV, Radio and Concerts to develop CD-ROMs. Since then I've worked on projects for corporate clients including the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and for not-for-profit organisations including Bungaburra Productions, a leading Indigenous arts company. I've worked at Macquarie University as a research assistant on the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, a research assistant to Professor David Throsby on his book The Economics of Cultural Policy, and as Deputy Director of the Innovative Universities European Union Centre, prior to commencing full-time doctoral study in 2008.

Advisory Board

  • Professor Judyth Sachs (Chair)
  • Dr Michelle Arrow
  • Dr Jane Connors, Head, Industry Policy and Strategy, ABC Radio
  • Mr Angelos Frangopoulos, CEO, Sky News Australia
  • Professor Jock Given, Swinburne University of Technology
  • Professor Murray Goot
  • Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley
  • Ann Landrigan, acting CEO, National Film and Sound Archive
  • Dr Virginia Madsen
  • Professor John Simons (Deputy Chair)

 

Honorary Associates