Teaching and Learning Showcase 2026

Thomas is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Cybernetics, at the Australian National University (ANU).

He integrates his background in systems engineering and interests in organisational design to research and deploy methods to create safe, sustainable, and responsible systems. His approaches draw on cybernetics, visual arts, and playcentric and embodied methods, to support diverse participants in imagining and acting towards hopeful futures.

He has applied these approaches in various contexts and at various scales, including a Sino-French joint research lab on haematology in Shanghai; the science diplomacy sections of French embassies in the USA and Australia; and the Australian Higher Education sector. Prior to his current role, he has served as inaugural manager of the 3AI Innovation Institute at ANU, and inaugural program manager for the ANU-wide decarbonisation program, Below Zero.

Thomas enjoys combining analysis and his systems engineering training with the creativity and joyfulness of visual arts and gameful design to support major societal transformations.

Stephen Dann is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing. Stephen’s research spans marketing, management, leadership, with specific examples including: the pioneering of Marketing definitions and applications, a marketing perspective on Twitter analysis including textual analysis of timelines and hashtag events; examining the ideology of Political Marketing and Stakeholder Engagement; the applications of Services Marketing in postgraduate supervision’; and the art and uptake of #Selfies on Instagram. As an experienced Certified Lego® Serious Play™ Facilitator, Stephen’s research also explores the marketing applications of Lego Serious Play. Stephen’s work has been published in top-ranked journals including European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Marketing Theory, Australasian Marketing Journal and Journal of Macromarketing.

John is a passionate educator and researcher with a background in ultracold atomic physics and innovative physics education. He convenes the nationally recognised Foundations of Physics course, where students learn to “think like a physicist”. He is also the founder and Director of ANU MakerSpace, a campus community where students and staff learn by doing and access tools and resources to create everything from artwork to electronics. His recognitions include the 2022 Australian Institute of Physics Education Medal, the 2017 National Award for University Teaching Excellence, a 2015 National Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning and the 2014 ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence.

Marina is a Senior Lecturer of Economics and Management at the ANU Research School of Economics. Her research spans cultural intelligence, international experience, cross-cultural management, international education and short-term study abroad. Her work has informed the design of the ANU College of Business and Economics’ Global Business Immersion programs, linking research with practical, culturally responsive learning. Marina currently teaches Managerial Economics and is a recipient of the 2019 ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award and the 2018 CBE Teaching Excellence Award. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

William Lim is a Lecturer of Actuarial Studies. William’s research interests are in superannuation and retirement income, computational economics and long-term care insurance. He is currently exploring decumulation strategies for retirees. William’s research has been published in Journal of Population Research.

Wai-Man (Raymond) Liu graduated with his Ph.D. in April 2005. Liu has published a research monograph on Inframarginal Economics and numerous high quality papers in international refereed journals, including Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial Markets, Journal of Futures Markets, Journal of Banking & Finance, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal and Pacific Economic Review. The research monograph was co-written with the late Prof. Xiaokai Yang (Yang and Liu (2009)). It provides systematic and comprehensive materials for applying a new overarching framework to the analysis of a wide range of micro and macro phenomena. Liu’s key research area is in market microstructure. His works involve studying the role of public information on the formation of liquidity and volatility in the financial market.

Samira Nazar is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at The Australian National University’s Research School of Management. Her research explores how marginalized entrepreneurs thrive in extreme and fragile contexts that are typically war-torn, where entrepreneurial ecosystems become fragmented and non-inclusive.

Samira received her PhD from the University of Queensland’s Business School for her work on women’s entrepreneurship in Afghanistan. Prior to commencing her PhD studies, Samira held a master’s degree in Business with a focus on Sustainability and Social Impact and a graduate diploma in Technology and Innovation Management from the University of Queensland as well as a bachelor’s degree in Business Consultancy from the University of Applied Sciences in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

Throughout the years, Samira has also been involved in various entrepreneurship, management, innovation, and strategy teaching, research, service, and engagement projects.

Bernardo holds a degree in Computer Engineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (2006), a master’s degree in Informatics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (2009) a PhD in Informatics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro with a sandwich period at the Leibniz Universität Hannover (2014) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Currently, he is the Sub Dean of Educational Programs and Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University at the College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics, a collaborator Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Informatics at UNIRIO (2015-), and an adjunct professor on leave at the Department of Informatics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (2014-2019). He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, the Vice-Chair of Educational Activity Student of the IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (TLT).

He served as a researcher at L3S Research Center in Germany (2012 (extraordinary student), 2013 (research fellow) and 2017 (research fellow), a research fellow at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) in Italy (2015), a research fellow at the Australian National University (2018), senior lecturer of the Centre for Digital Humanities Research at the Australian National University (2019-2022) and visiting professor at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in the US (2024). Bernardo holds numerous national and international research awards, published over 100 scientific papers, including conference papers, book chapters and journals. He also co-developed the FireMe app, which achieved a global repercussions appearing in hundreds of communication channels such as the New York Times, Le Monde, Washington Post, CNN, FOX. In addition, he serves as a reviewer for many high-ranked conferences and journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, British Journal of Educational Technology, International Semantic Web Conference, ACM Hypertext Conference, International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies and the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE).

Safiya is a Lecturer at the ANU school of Cybernetics, the first new school at the ANU in about 40 years. The School seeks to establish a new branch of engineering concerned with taking artificial intelligence safely, sustainably, and responsibly to scale, and cybernetics as an important tool for navigating major societal transformations. Safiya is the convenor of the Building Cyber-Physical Systems course in the Master of Applied Cybernetics program.

As an information systems researcher and cybernetics practitioner with an MSc in IT Management and a PhD in Educational Technologies and Computing, Safiya is often interested in the big picture – finding common ground between different aspects and how they can work together harmoniously for the greater good. Safiya is very passionate about the sustainable adoption and implementation of emerging technologies. In this space, she has developed a cloud computing adoption model for higher education in developing countries, as well as a mobile learning framework for the integration of educational technologies to enhance existing practices in places with a paucity of resources. Through this framework, she successfully demonstrated how local opportunities could be effectively utilized to address contextual problems. Safiya’s current interest is in the widespread adoption and impact of AI and educational technology innovations supported by generative AI and large language models.

Prior to joining the School of Cybernetics, Safiya was part of the Research Cluster of Digital inequality and social change (RC-Disc) at the University of Canberra, where she worked with the team on the strategic use and socio-cultural impacts of IT and several ICT4D projects, including developing culturally appropriate interventions to address online safety for Australia’s Indigenous children.

Adam was an undergraduate at the University of Wollongong (B.Math, Honours first class, and B.CompSci) and a graduate student at the University of Oxford (D.Phil. Mathematics). Working as a mathematician in the USA for 13 years (three years at Tufts University and ten years at Bucknell University), he gained considerable experience teaching undergraduate mathematics within the liberal arts model. He returned to Australia in 2018, spending two and half years at the University of Queensland before moving to the Australian National University in 2021 to become the First-year Coordinator in the Mathematical Sciences Institute.

The Popsicule, ANU Science in Pop Culture and Entertainment Hub, explores the cultural meanings of science with the aim to better understand how pop cultural narratives about science have affected the public discourse and understanding of science, and thus our science-society relationship.

The Popsicule is a university-based hub – a dynamic laboratory and community-driven platform – where students are invited to broaden their horizons, explore their creative potential and develop their own professional portfolios through interdisciplinary engagement in innovative courses, collaborative publication projects and creative public conversations with diverse audiences.

Together with PhD candidates, Honours students, MA, BA and PhB students, Research Project students, student interns and ANU alumni, Popsiculists create and promote research-based public events and inclusive experiential community-focused, research-driven knowledge adventures. They run engaging seminars and public workshop all fostering collaborations across students, scientists, artists and other co-conspirators in Canberra and beyond.

They develop and share rigorous learnings and resources about the (pop) cultural work and aesthetic achievements of science through international research publications, in-person and virtual experiences. In sum, the Popsicule develops opportunities for co-learning, co-leadership and co-creation across research-led teaching, research and engagement activities.

Pop culture is rocket fuel for science communication, and the Popsicule is where ignition meets imagination and creative engagement.

Ann has been managing, educating and consulting across the Australia-Pacific region over 4 decades, in the private, public and community sectors. Since 2017 she has been teaching undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA classes for the Research School of Management of the ANU, primarily on Evidence-based Management with some project management and information systems topics.

This work draws on her extensive industry experience. Over the 2 decades from 1998 she consulted using evidence-based practice on strategic project management, business analysis, and human resource strategy: clients include AXA, Department of Family & Community Services, Department of Health & Aged Care, NSW TAFE and ACT Government. In association with Thomsett International from 2002-2014 consulted and presented public and private workshops in Business Systems Analysis, Benefits Analysis, Project Management, Risk Management, Quality Management and Team Leadership with clients including AMP, BT Financial Group, CUSCAL, Sealcorp, Tower Life, Zurich, CPAA, Australian Taxation Office, Government of Fiji, CPRS, Lend Lease Prime, OneSteel, CocaCola-Amatil, Yarra Valley Water, South-East Water, Charles Sturt University, Monash University, University of Melbourne, Training Consortium (Tasmania), Tablelands Regional Council. Prior to that she focused on information systems and their project management with the Australian Public Service from 1988 to 1997, with those roles drawing on her experience in information systems, project management and education with various community and private sector organisations from 1979 to 1988.

Ann has Masters degrees focused on Information systems design and management and on project management and in 2022 she completed a multi-disciplinary Master of Philosophy using qualitative methods, on the “Drivers of Project Managers’ Compliance Behaviours”.

She has been invited to contribute to industry forums, conferences, and publications over many years, most recently on leadership in open collaborations at Linuxconf 2020. Her professional affiliations include the Australian Computer Society (Senior Member and Certified Practitioner), the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics, and the Centre for Evidence-based Management (Fellow). Her professional interest and focus has been in the following fields.

Project & Program Management
Business Analysis
Information Systems
Management Decision-making & Strategy
Management Education, Workforce development, Teaching, & Facilitation

Krisztina is Chair of Medical Science and Associate Professor in Anatomy at the ANU School of Medicine and Psychology. She trained in medicine and ophthalmology in Budapest and completed her PhD at the University of Sydney on the role of the environment in retinal degeneration. Her research spans degenerative diseases of the retina, photoreceptor injury and protection, and non-invasive therapeutic approaches. She leads the Collaborative Health, Education, Self and Society (CHESS) Lab and contributes to projects in health professional and transdisciplinary health humanities education. She holds a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I completed my PhD in Anthropology at Heidelberg University, Germany, and subsequently held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian Centre on China in the World at ANU. Prior to entering academia, I worked with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in Madrid and the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), experiences that continue to shape my engagement with heritage governance, policy, and international institutions.

My academic career has been shaped by extensive ethnographic research in China and across East Asia, alongside sustained international collaboration across Europe, the Americas, and the Asia–Pacific. I have held leadership roles within the field, including Vice-President (Communication) of the International Association of Critical Heritage Studies (2014–2020) and Deputy Chair of the Anthropology of Tourism Committee of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (2013–2021), contributing to the development of critical heritage studies as a global and interdisciplinary field.

I currently serve on the editorial boards of Current Anthropology, Cultural Geographies, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Journal of Heritage Tourism, and Journal of Anthropological Research, and am an expert member of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee of ICOMOS. In 2024, I was a Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study inHerit at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Within ANU, I served on the University Academic Board (2022–2024), the University Research Committee (2022-2024), and Learning and Teaching Committee (2026-) contributing to institutional governance and research strategy at the university level.