Australia's "most innovative academic" joins UTS

UTS has appointed one of Australia's most prominent entrepreneurial academics and public intellectuals, Professor Deb Verhoeven, as Associate Dean of Engagement and Innovation in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Professor Verhoeven joins UTS in September from Deakin University in Melbourne as part of the university's mission to create new pathways to innovation in Australia.

Described by Campus Review in 2013 as Australia's "most innovative academic," Professor Verhoeven has already transformed the fields of the digital humanities, cinema studies and interdisciplinary approaches to big data.

She has served as inaugural Deputy Chair of the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), CEO of the Australian Film Institute (AFI), as a founding executive member of the Australasian Association of the Digital Humanities (aaDH) and recently as a member of the Tasmanian Government's Digital Futures Advisory Council.

"I am so excited to have an opportunity to work in the creative heart of Sydney. As someone who has spent a substantial part of my career analysing the Australian film industry, joining UTS turns the green of my interstate envy into emerald."

UTS Dean of Arts and Social Sciences, Professor Mary Spongberg said she was thrilled to appoint Professor Verhoeven to the Faculty. "Deb is a distinguished scholar, public intellectual and leading international proponent of the digital humanities. She will bring great energy and vision to this new portfolio."

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Glenn Wightwick, who is about to take over the Innovation portfolio at UTS, shared the Dean's sentiments. "This is a major coup for the faculty. Deb's brief will be to ensure that we are the most innovative faculty of arts in the country, we are very lucky to have her on board."

Professor Verhoeven is a global leader in digital humanities research. Her research addresses the vast amounts of newly available "cultural data" that has enabled unprecedented computational analysis in the humanities and creative arts.

In addition to a prolific schedule of scholarly publications and media appearances, she has focused on the development of national online research resources such as the Humanities Networked Infrastructure Project (HuNI); the Cinema and Audiences Research Project (CAARP) database; and The Ultimate Gig Guide (TUGG) an online archive of live music information.

In 2010 her work was recognised with the Australian Teachers of Media Best Tertiary Education Resource Award for bonza: an online film and TV research resource. In 2015 she was appointed International Chair of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations annual conference that was held for the first time outside the northern hemisphere, in Sydney.

In 2013 Professor Verhoeven initiated the Research My World collaboration between Deakin University and the crowdfunding platform pozible.com to pilot the micro-financing of university research.