Strategic Leader, Professor of Creative Media, FRSA
I am an experienced senior leader in UK Higher Education with a keen interest in how we can lead cultural change through inclusion and meaningful engagement. I enjoy collaborating with colleagues as we find creative solutions for cross institutional projects and tell the stories of our shared successes. I have also worked widely in commercial and art contexts (creating interactive projects for digital media and installations) since the early 1990s. My work has been funded by a wide range of organisations and funding councils. It has also been shown on multiple continents in a diverse range of contexts. Many of the projects I have been involved with have received awards and other major forms of recognition.
Strategic Leadership
I am the Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for Education in the Faculty of Society & Culture at Northumbria University, Newcastle. The largest of the university’s 3 Faculties, we have approximately 12000 students and over 700 hundred staff members across 4 schools: Business; Design, Arts & Creative Industries; Humanities & Social Sciences; and Law. Prior to that, I was the Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor for Education in the Faculty of Arts, Design & Social Sciences at Northumbria. Before heading to Northumbria, I was the Associate Dean for Education in the School of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex. I also act as a panel chair and a Strategic Reviewer for multiple research councils within UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and I have been a board member for arts and community organisations for two decades. One of the groups I chair is in receipt of a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, “the MBE for voluntary groups”. I am also one of the core team behind the multi-award-winning GNUF.
Award-winning Work
- Halo Halo is my latest project. Currently in development, it is shaped by collaborative work in three countries (Japan, the USA and the UK). It explores co-creative methods in creative practice and meaning making. Part of this work has included taking part in the Shiroishi Zao Residency in Japan.
- Digital Ghost Hunt is a ground-breaking fusion of augmented reality, coding education and immersive theatre. I was the Principal Investigator (PI) for this project which was twice funded by the EPSRC and AHRC* as part of the New Immersive Experiences scheme. It was also featured at SXSW in Austin, Texas as part of a joint cultural mission by the British Council and the AHRC.
* EPSRC = Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, AHRC = Arts & Humanities Research Council - Some Assembly, a collaborative project with Palmarin Merges, was selected as one of the “top 5 gallery openings” when it premiered in Portland, OR in 2018.
- My project Traces of Lee Miller: Echoes from St Malo, an interactive project exploring Miller’s time as a war photographer during WWII, was shown at the V&A in London and internationally alongside retrospectives of her work.
- I have also been an associate member of Forced Entertainment as a digital author. With them, I created a number of interactive works that were exhibited around the world at venues including ZKM (in Karlsruhe, Germany) the ICA (in London) and The Art Institute of Chicago. Nightwalks, an interactive virtual reality piece I created in collaboration with the company won the Transmediale in 2000. I also performed in the inaugural tour of The Voices.
