Welcome to Professor Jenna Ng, who joins The University of Queensland as the new Head of School for Communication and Arts, replacing Professor Bronwyn Lea.
A Professor of Digital Media and Culture, she comes to UQ from the University of York, UK, where she was Head of Creative Technologies in their School of Arts and Creative Technologies.
A creative practice researcher, Professor Ng led undergraduate and postgraduate programs in interactive media, digital culture, creative AI, music production and audio culture, with her latest project, The New Virtuality, winning multiple awards including the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology and the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MECCSA) Practice-Based Research of the Year.
An internationally renowned scholar with extensive experience in academia and leadership – particularly in digital media, culture, and interactive technologies – Professor Ng has been instrumental in developing innovative academic programs and research initiatives and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her new role.
“In the growing noise and chaos of our world today, we need to understand our stories more than ever – our creativity, our transmissions of meaning to one another,” she said.
“I'm absolutely delighted to be joining UQ’s School of Communication and Arts and look forward to leading this enormously talented School in its work to teach and research communication, storytelling and creative expression.
“Across its multidisciplinary interests from creative writing to literature to journalism to art history to performance to audiovisual to digital media, I want to explore how UQ and the School can amplify the voices of storytellers and the community to increase understanding of each other's lived experiences and build a better world."
Prior to joining York, Professor Ng held research posts as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge and as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Umeå University, Sweden. She earned her PhD in Film Studies from University College London (UCL).
She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), a qualification which recognises high level teaching impact, influence and effectiveness, and has received several university awards and nominations for her leadership and management, as well as the University of York Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award for Teaching Excellence and Innovation.
Her books include Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds (Bloomsbury, 2013) and The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie (Amsterdam University Press, 2021), which won an Honourable Mention by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies.
A published poet, Professor Ng writes creatively in her spare time and has even represented Singapore in chess! Besides that, she prefers to spend her time outdoors putting her qualifications in scuba diving and sailing to good use. She also loves skiing, cycling and hiking.
We welcome Professor Ng to the School and thank Professor Lea for leading it over the past 6 years.
Professor Ng can be contacted via email at jenna.ng@uq.edu.au, and her Executive Assistant, Dolores Element, can be contacted at ea.commarts@uq.edu.au for any administrative matters.
