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Honorary appointments

Research associates

John Connell

John Connell is an award winning Irish born journalist, author and creative media producer. In 2008 he was awarded a Walkley award for his documentary on the Federal Intervention. He has worked with the ABC, SBS, RTE and NPR and as a casual lecturer/tutor at UTS.

As an author his work has appeared in the Best Australian stories, UTS writers' anthology, and was dramatized by the ABC. He has recently signed to Picador publishing house.

As a media producer his company Indian Ocean Productions have produced Africa to Australia (opens an external site), an award winning online documentary for SBS. He is currently working on his next project an interactive documentary on the Chinese community.

He was recently awarded the Eleanor Dark Varuna flagship fellowship and a bronze medal in the New York Festivals Drama section for the adaption of his short story, The Little Black. You can listen to the the piece at www.indianoceanproductions.com (opens an external site)

John is also a keen farmer.

Dr Dianne Johnson

Dr Dianne Johnson, author and athropologist, passed away in 2012. She had been a honorary associate of UTS since 2006.

Dianne was a woman of passion, enthusiasm and energy. She was a writer, an anthropologist, a teacher, lecturer, child care director amongst a wide range of other roles. She was also an artist, a poet, a gardener, a craftswoman, a photographer — to list just some of her other interests. She is survived by her husband of 41 years, George Zdenkowski, their son Sasha, daughter Sophie and son-in-law Fotis.

Her publications included:

  • Night Skies of Aboriginal Australia: a Noctuary, Oceanic Publications, University of Sydney, 1998.
  • Mandatory Injustice: Compulsory Imprisonment in the Northern Territory, (co-authored with George Zdenkowski) University of Technology, Sydney, 2000.
  • Lighting the Way: Reconciliation Stories, The Federation Press, Annandale, 2002.
  • Report on the Cultural Significance of Upper Kedumba Valley for Declaration as an Aboriginal Place, (with Dawn Colless), NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, 2002.
  • Aunty Joan Cooper: Through the Front Door, A Darug and Gundungurra Story, Mountains Outreach Community Service Inc, Lawson, 2003. Report to the Gundungurra Tribal Council concerning Gundungurra Native Title Claim (Federal Court File No NG606/98), 2004
  • Sacred Waters: the story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners, Halstead Press, Sydney, 2006
  • 'The Gully Aboriginal Place', Chapter 8 in Blue Mountains Dreaming, The Aboriginal Heritage (Second Edition), Edited by Eugene Stockton and John Merriman, Blue Mountains Education and Research Trust, pp 201-222. (ISBN 978 0 646 50386 8).
  • 'From Fairy to Witch: Imagery and Myth in the Azaria Case', in The Chamberlain Case: Nation, Law, Memory, edited by Deborah Staines, Michelle Arrow & Katherine Biber, Australian Scholarly Publishing Pty Ltd, North Melbourne, pp. 7-20. (ISBN 978 1921509-09-4).
  • Bruny d'Entrecasteaux and his encounter with Tasmanian Aborigines: from Provence to Recherche Bay', 2012.

Any enquiries for Dr Johnson, please contact ACIJ Manager on 9514 2295 or acijmanager@uts.edu.au

Antony Loewenstein

Antony Loewenstein is a freelance journalist, author and blogger. He has written for The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Sydney's Sun-Herald, ZNet, The Big Issue, Crikey, CounterPunch and others.

He is a board member of Macquarie University's Centre for Middle East and North African Studies and appears regularly on radio, in public and at universities in Australia and overseas (including Harvard) discussing current affairs and politics.

A contributor to Not Happy, John (2004), a bestseller on the controversy over the awarding of the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi and To A Time to Speak Out (2008), on the rise of global Jewish dissent, Antony is also the co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices.

His 2008 book The Blogging Revolution is about the internet in repressive regimes. His bestseller on the Israel/Palestine conflict, My Israel Question (1st edn, 2006; 2nd edn 2007), was re-released in 2009 in a fully updated third edition.

He is currently writing a book on disaster capitalism (due 2013) and in 2012 will release a book on Israel/Palestine called After Zionism and a title about the Left. Both My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution are being translated in a number of foreign languages.

Any enquiries for Antony Loewenstein, please contact Antony through his website http://antonyloewenstein.com (opens an external site) or via the ACIJ Manager on 9514 2295 or acijmanager@uts.edu.a

Olivier Pollet

Olivier Pollet is a young french journalist and video producer, passionate about human rights, the environment and development issues. After studying English in the United States and History and Anthropology at the University of Nanterre in Paris, Olivier Pollet completed his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is currently working on his first long feature documentary about Papua New Guinea.

Dr Anna Salleh

Dr Anna Salleh is a science journalist with experience in print, television and radio. She has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Sydney, a Masters in Journalism from UTS and a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Wollongong.

Her main interest as a researcher and journalist is in technological risk controversies and she currently works with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's online science news service.

Any enquiries for Dr Salleh, please contact her directly on anna.salleh@alumni.uts.edu.au

Her recent publications include:

  • The fourth estate and the fifth branch: the news media, GM risk, and democracy in Australia, New Genetics |& Society Journal, Vol 27 No 3, Sept 2008, pp. 233-250, Routledge.
  • Review: Science and The Fourth Estate, Metascience (2008) 17: 99-103, Springer.

Dr Kasun Ubayasiri

Dr Kasun Ubayasiri is a Sri Lankan born Australian Journalist and media academic. He has a PhD in media and political violence, and has conducted extensive research on the role of cyber-media in terrorist conflicts. His doctoral thesis titled: 'Media, Tamil Tigers, terrorism and the Internet: The cyber interface between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and mainstream media' focuses on the use of cyber media in Sri Lanka's thirty year civil war.

Kasun Ubayasiri has worked as a journalist in both the Sri Lankan and Australian press as a news and features reporter and photo-journalist. He currently teaches Journalism at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Dr Ubayasiri's research and professional interests include the role of media in counter insurgency (COIN), reportage of armed conflict, photo-journalism and journalism in the cyber age.

His recent publications include:

Book chapter:

Asian Cyberactivism: Freedom of Expression and Media Censorship (2004). Chapter title: A virtual Eelam - Democracy, Internet and Sri Lanka's Tamil struggle. Steven Gan, James Gomez and Uwe Johannen (ed.).Thailand: Friedrich Naumann Foundation .

Refereed journals:

Asia Pacific Media Educator: Issue 12, New Communication Technologies in Asia: Issues of Control and Concerns, 'Internet and Media freedom: A case study of contemporary media censorship in Sri Lanka and the emergence of web-based rebel media' (2002).

Ejournalist:

  • Vol.2(1), eTerror: Journalism, Terrorism and the Internet, co authored with Prof Alan Knight (CQU), 2002.
  • Vol 3(2), One Temple, One Bomb and Three lines of Political Narrative, co authored with Linda Brady (CQU), 2003
  • Vol 4(2), Virtual hostage dramas and real politics, 2004.
  • Vol 5(1), Separatist politics of a tsunami: A Sri Lankan case study, 2005.
  • Vol 5(2), Nations: Historical and contemporary - imagined communities and a bloody confl ict, 2005.

Louise Williams

Louise Williams is a senior Australian journalist with considerable experience as a foreign correspondent in the Asia-Pacific region and international affairs. She has worked as Asian Editor and Foreign Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and has written or contributed to a number of books on regional issues. She has also lectured at the University of Technology, Sydney and Macquarie University and is a long time member of the International Humanitarian Law committee of the Australian Red Cross, NSW Branch. Louise Williams is currently contracted by the Sydney Morning Herald to write editorials and feature articles and is project coordinator for a media internship program in Indonesia, administered by Murdoch University.

Louise Williams has won various major awards throughout her career, including the Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Australia Council's Asia-Pacific Writers' Fellowship and the Citibank Pan Asia Journalism Award in conjunction with Columbia University.

Any enquiries for Louise Williams, please contact ACIJ Manager on 9514 2295 or acijmanager@uts.edu.au