Rate My Professor Helen Rusak

Dr. Helen Rusak serves as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Marketing within the College of Business and Law at Adelaide University. She holds a PhD and a Master of Arts from the University of Adelaide, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Arts Management from the University of South Australia. Her professional career encompasses key appointments in arts education and management, including Senior Lecturer in Arts Management at Edith Cowan University and various roles at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), such as Course Coordinator and Senior Lecturer.

Rusak's research focuses on arts management, women's leadership in the music sector, mental health in performing arts, and entrepreneurship in cultural industries. Notable publications include her book Women, Music and Leadership (Routledge, 2023), surveying women's experiences in musical leadership roles; "Corporate Entrepreneurship in the arts in Western Australia" (The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 2016); "Breathing through the pandemic: Performing arts challenges and responses to the mental health implications of COVID-19" (2021, co-authored); "Opera by women in Australia: some data" (Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management, 2010); and "Entrepreneurial orientation among arts managers in Western Australia" (Artivate, 2021). Further contributions cover analyses of Elena Kats-Chernin's works, including "Simply Divine: Feminist aesthetics in three music theatre works of Elena Kats-Chernin" (2005), "Mr Barbecue by Elena Kats-Chernin: The Raw and the Cooked" (2014), and "Wild Swans by Elena Kats-Chernin: The Journey From the Australian Ballet to the UK Dance Charts" (2019), alongside studies on opera miniseries like "The Divorce: A soap opera" (2020) and regional cultural value measurement (2017). She noted that 63.5% of Australia's performing artists reported worsening mental health during COVID.